Payback
by freerangeegghead
Summary: When Santana loses everyone she holds dear in the blink of an eye, justice and retribution has been the only thing that's on her mind. But what happens when that is no longer enough? Brittany/Santana,Santana/Rachel. Dark,vigilante, bad ass Santana. Angst, drama, friendship, action, adventure, revenge, maybe romance, eventual superhero. Warning: Character deaths. A/U.
1. Prologue: Falls Apart

_**Summary: When Santana loses everything and everyone she holds dear in the blink of an eye, justice and retribution has been the only thing that's on her mind, the only thing that keeps her going. But what happens when that is no longer enough? Brittany/Santana, Santana/Rachel. Angst, drama, friendship, action, adventure, maybe romance. Warning: Character deaths. Extreme A/U.**_

_**Rated M for character deaths, some mild themes, mild violence, language, possibly mild descriptions of an intimate nature and overall darkness and angst of the story. You've been warned. Read at your own risk.**_

_**Disclaimer: I own nothing but the prose. Pop culture references are also not mine. **_

_**A/N: The Superhero mythos herein is borrowed liberally from, but not limited to, a number of sources, most notably, Green Arrow/Arrow, Green Hornet, Batman, Ironman, Huntress, Black Canary, other DC/Marvel heroes, with a bit of inspiration from Alexander Dumas, Robert Ludlum, Quentin Tarantino films, Bruce Lee, Jet Li, Jacky Chan films, and episodes from National Geographic and Discovery, as well, among others. Just imagine Santana as a bit of a butch superhero with mad fighting skills and a lot of rage. Anyway, apologies to purists. **_

_**Also apologies for the character deaths. That wasn't intentional, the structure of the story and plot is such that there needed to be an impetus for Santana and the story to move forward.**_

_**Also, it will be unapologetically comic book-y. Because lesbian Latina superhero obviously. We need more of those. **_**:-)**

* * *

Santana doesn't trust anyone.

She hadn't known when that started being the norm, instead of the exception, in her life, but it came now to her like it was second nature, so naturally, so instinctively, it was hard to think of a time when she completely trusted people.

She would like to think it would have had something to do with the fact that she is the _unica hija_ of one of the wealthiest, self-made men of color this side of the Atlantic, the young, pampered woman who never wanted for anything, who always had someone at her beck and call, who never had to lift a finger and who's greatest worry or problem was what to wear to a club, or which designer Prada or Louis Vuitton bag to buy, or which place to go to for spring break, Bahamas or Tuscany or Bali. Where her father got the money - he had factories, ships, stocks, investments, an import and export business that spanned the North and South American continents - she never really cared for, as long as she had her Ferrari, her Lamborghini, her BMW and Mercedes, her Harley Davidson, the yacht her father gave her for her eighteenth birthday, her expensive, extensive collection of clothes by Dolce and Gabana, Versace, Marc Jacobs, Burberry, her Louis Vuitton and Prada bags, her parties, her six-figure monthly allowance, her vacation house in Tuscany, the luxuries of life that only being wealthy afforded her, doted over by her father, their servants, in a sprawling mansion with an impeccably manicured equally expansive lawn and yard, the massive, gravel driveway, the large garage that housed all her cars and her motorcycle, the massive bedroom she had with the four-poster bed and the jacuzi and the large walk-in closet and mini-bar and everything else.

Her father had been a precocious, successful business mogul but he always kept telling her that she had to be careful, she had to be shrewd, she should never take anyone or anything, be it a proposition, a business deal, a contract, a person, at face value. He would tell her to watch out for dodgy things, that "if it's too good to be true, then it probably is", to "trust no one", and many other things that she, most often than not, ignored. He would tell her that he hadn't gotten to where he was by sheer kindness alone, that everything that had been had, had been done so with blood and sweat and tears, for an only daughter, the only one that mattered, and for a mother, who had died only a few years after her birth.

Santana barely remembers her mother, only remembers all the help, nannies and tutors who took care of her all her years of growing up.

She barely remembers them all, but the one thing that she doesn't remember is to _not_ trust anyone.

But then, at twenty one, she meets Brittany S. Pierce. And that changes her life.

* * *

She meets Brittany at a pub party a few days before she graduates from university. Santana had been hanging out with her equally not so easily impressed best friend, Quinn Fabray, another spoiled noveau riche brat whose father, a stoic, expressionless, humorless man, made his money on Wall Street, both of them looking to see who they could hook up with for the night. Santana and Quinn have had few students interested in them, but they both find them all boring or tedious, unimpressed by their vests and suits and ties. Santana's bodyguard and driver, Mike Chang, sits discreetly in one of the stools by the bar, trying to blend in, whilst keeping an eye on his charge, but failing to do so with his straight-backed posture, the humorless expression on his face, and his no non-sense suit. He has ordered a drink, which he is pretending to drink, but mostly he is eyeing everyone that looks Santana's way. Santana does not fully comprehend the need for a bodyguard, since she hasn't actually reached paparazzi levels of notoriety or interest in the media, so she's never had to need him, but she tolerates Mike Chang, even though the constant presence of a strict, unsmiling man everywhere she goes is quite annoying and suffocating. She's never actually needed his services, and feels uncomfortable in the presence of someone who gets paid to protect you, because that means, if someone else paid a higher price, would he turn against her and betray her? She doesn't know. But she doesn't care. And she thinks that she is getting to paranoid really and is beginning to believe too much in her father's credo. She'd once asked her father if this distrust extends to family, close friends and colleagues and her father hesitates, not knowing what to say, especially when William Schuester, her father's accountant and lawyer, comes in with the requisite number of documents to sign. The question is left unanswered in the air, and Santana is left alone deciding whether people close to her should be trusted as well. She decides to do it on a case by case basis, because observing her father's friendship with Schuester shows Santana that there are people one can trust. William Schuester, afterall, is the most trustworthy person in the world, and he's been there through the worst of times in the Lopez empire, and Santana would do well to trust him and learn from him.

She smiles now at Mike though, knowing full well Mike will be there when she needs someone to drive her when she's too drunk to drive. She nods at him now and there is a barely visible acknowledgement from his direction.

But then, Quinn spots a tall, blonde young woman sitting alone by the bar that she thinks is right up Santana's alley and she leans over towards Santana to tell her so. Santana only scowls at Quinn, rolls her eyes and says, "Yeah, but she's friends with Rachel Berry."

Santana indicates the dark-haired woman who is currently doing an insufferable karaoke song of a Celine Dion song that neither Quinn nor Santana particularly like. Rachel Berry, the diva of the Drama Department and star of every college play known to man, is the bane of Santana and Quinn's existence.

"Might I remind you of the awkwardness of Rachel Berry's father, the very same police chief, Captain Hiram Berry, walking in on you and his daughter making out in my bedroom during my eighteenth birthday party," Quinn reminds her. "And the only reason the police chief didn't give you a hard time was because you were the daughter and only heir of the founder, owner, CEO and president of Lopez Industries, Consolidated."

Santana makes a face. "Don't remind me."

"Might I also remind you of the fact that Rachel Berry kind of hates your guts because you never actually called her after said fiasco, and so you hitting on her friend is probably a bad idea," Quinn ends now. "Especially since you made a point of making fun of her and teasing her and joining her study group for the sole purpose of getting into her pants and then ditching her after when you actually _got_ into her pants."

For a second, Santana does think about the consequences of hitting on Rachel Berry's friend, not particularly relishing the idea of increased interaction between them. However, both notice a tall, thirtyish looking man in a police uniform with a goofy grin, standing awkwardly beside Rachel. Quinn tells Santana then, that with luck, Rachel Berry wouldn't even notice them as she seems currently enamored with his presence.

"Aw, she's a big girl, I think she can handle it," Santana says now, downing a drink as she eyes the tall blonde by the bar.

"Whore," Quinn mutters.

"Slut," Santana tells her now, with a smirk.

"Best friends for life!" Quinn tells her, raising her wine glass in a toast.

"Best friends for life," Santana says now, clinking her glass with that of Quinn's.

"We are the bitch-goddesses of this fucking university, Lopez," Quinn tells her now.

"Hell, yeah," Santana tells her with a grin.

Quinn spots a confused towheaded young man standing all alone and bewildered by the bar and after grinning at Santana and muttering about a boy and something about virgin flesh, Santana is left alone sitting by their table, annoyed that Quinn has abandoned her so she can get some drunken hook up that she'll never remember the day after.

As Santana sits there, staring at her half-empty glass of wine, the waiter comes with another glass of wine and she says, "I didn't order that one."

The waiter nods and says, "Yes, it's from that nice woman by the bar. Drink's on her. Says to tell you hope you like it", and then he indicates the same blonde, long-haired young woman by the counter who is looking at her, then he nods and moves away.

Santana looks to where the man has indicated and she sees a young blonde woman smiling at her, hair tousled and beautiful, glass half-raised in a toast in Santana's direction. Santana blushes, for some strange reason feels herself all shy, smiles, raises her own glass and mouths a thank-you.

In a matter of minutes, Brittany is sitting beside her at her table, and Santana is asking her, "What's your name?"

At first, she mistakenly thinks Brittany has said, "Britney Spears" and she almost spits out the wine she has sipped from glass. "Your name is Britney Spears?!" she sputters, in amusement and snark, to Brittany's chagrin, who tells her, "Please don't call me that", to Santana laughing. But then Brittany smiles at her and says, "You have a nice laugh", which makes Santana blush.

Brittany doesn't seem to know who she is, or indicates that she reads newspapers. She doesn't even know that the university where Santana studies has been marked by Lopez Industries Consolidated when Santana's father had bought a place for her by donating a generous amount of money, offering money to renovate and add a wing to the Center for Latin American Studies, and having it named "The Lopez Building", ensuring that Santana Lopez will almost always have bragging rights whenever she goes out with equally rich, pampered friends. They may brag about their rich parents, but she can always brag about that ivy-covered hideous brick building with the equally hideous addition of a wing being the Lopez Center of Latin American Studies Building.

When Santana asks what she is majoring in, Brittany says, "Dance" and Santana comments on how useless and pointless that major is ("The chances of getting employed with your degree is basically nil," Santana comments) but when Brittany asks what she is majoring in, and Santana says, "Banking and Finance", Brittany only smiles and says, "That's even more useless and pointless". When Santana demands to know why, Brittany says, "Well, isn't that just code for finding ways to get other people's money?" When Santana indicates that she doesn't get what Brittany is saying, Brittany says, "You don't make stuff. You don't create stuff. You kind of just…live off what other people make, don't you? Kind of like a shark. Or a parasite. Either way, your major's even more useless and pointless than mine." Then Brittany tilts her head and says, "And I bet you haven't worked a day in your life anyway, and probably won't be doing that anytime soon."

Santana doesn't know why, but Brittany's part rebuke-part-sensible commentary on Santana's intended major makes Santana even more interested. Unlike the other men and women she's meant, Brittany doesn't seem interested in impressing her, or getting on her good side, and even though she's given every indication that she's interested in Santana, Brittany is not about to go out of her way to impress Santana to do so.

Brittany is enthusiastic about young adult novels, foremost of which is "Twilight", "Beastly", "The Vampire Diaries", "Sweet Valley High" and the many other young adult novels that, if mentioned by any other person, would have made Santana laugh. But there's an earnestness, a sweetness, a genuineness in Brittany that makes Santana stop and rethink making snarky comments, and she finds herself listening to Brittany S. Pierce, even though she has absolutely zero interest in books, or dolphins, or ducks, or duets, or ballads, or music or dance or unicorns, or the many other things Brittany seems interested in.

Santana is chatting with Brittany S. Pierce, and though she finds her quirky, and unusual, she ends up spending the whole night talking to the other woman. Santana realizes, when Mike taps her on the shoulder and indicates that it is already almost four in the morning and she needs to go home ("No dorm for you," her father says, presenting Santana the keys to a luxurious condo he'd bought just for her), because she has a class in a few hours, Santana blinks and is surprised she's actually been able to sustain interest in a person for this long, and has not had thoughts of sleeping with her in that time. Well, she has thought of sleeping with her, but something had told her Brittany was not someone you had a one-night stand with. Besides, if she'd slept with Brittany, that meant it was just sex, and nothing more, and she found herself wanting something more from her.

Santana knows she's not supposed to trust this woman so easily, but Brittany S. Pierce is beautiful, and blonde and funny and interesting and hot, and she has abs and muscled thighs hidden beneath a short, tight skirt, that Santana is quite keen on exploring, and all of that talk from her father about not trusting anyone is gone from her mind.

And as she listens to Brittany, charmed by her quirkiness, she realizes none of what her father has kept telling her mattered anyway. None of it mattered. As long as she had Brittany, none of that mattered. Only Brittany mattered.

Brittany, with her long, blonde, tousled, smooth hair, her deep, dark blue eyes, that easy smile on her face that could so easily make Santana smile herself, those long, tanned thighs, that whole body that seemed made of sinew, muscle and grace. And how graceful she danced. How graceful she danced.

It is all Santana can think of, can dream of, Brittany dancing, Brittany smiling, Brittany laughing, Brittany looking at her like she was the only person that mattered to her.

But now all of that, even Brittany, is gone.

* * *

It's interesting what money can buy. Santana thinks that those people who say money can't buy happiness, or love or whatever, clearly have never had money, because she knows she's been able to buy happiness. And maybe even love. And loyalty.

But she realizes, after months of dating Brittany, after finally spending a night with her, right after their graduation, a ceremony that her father hadn't been able to come to, that those same people were right. Money couldn't buy happiness, or love. Staring at a sleeping Brittany, naked and beautiful, peaceful and happy in Santana's arms, Santana thinks she cannot ask for more.

And when Brittany wakes, she asks Brittany to come with her to Mexico, on _"Dia De Los Muertos"_, the Day of the Dead. Brittany had been interested in traveling, had actually taken an interest in checking out _"Dia De Los Muertos"_, raises the very important issue of having to look for work, of getting their lives moving, but Santana isn't particularly worried about any of that. She had only bothered to major in something, to get a university degree, mostly to please her father, because her father had put much stock on getting a university education. But mostly, she was going to inherit her father's companies anyway, and so she only grins at Brittany and says they have to go check out _"Dia De Los Muertos"_ - her father, after all, has a private jet that is at her disposal, they can come and go as they please, if they want to.

Brittany takes a bit more convincing before she agrees to go and Santana thinks they would have a wonderful time together.

Her father hears of it and excitedly invites himself to their excursion, to Santana's annoyance, who was hoping to spend some time with Brittany, alone.

Little did Santana know this would be the last time she would be able to spend time with her father and girlfriend.

Little did she know all of this would change her life forever.

Santana would never be able to sleep well ever again after that.

* * *

She is haunted by nightmares, of her father, face all bloody and pulpy and bruised, begging for his daughter's life, as he kneeled and blubbered and cried.

She could still see it, in her mind's eye, Santana running barefoot through the halls, pulling Brittany roughly by the hand, away from the masked men beating up her father and his body guards. She vaguely remembers Mike Chang running behind them, with guns in both hands, trying to protect them.

She sees it in her mind's eye, and in her dream, she runs slowly, too slowly, ever slowly, and the men catch up, and there is the terrace, and the rushing, roaring river below and there are guns trained on her but Mike steps forward and there is no room for anything, the bullet hits him right smack on the chest and he falls back and over the balustrades. Brittany is next. Brittany steps forward, right in front of her, when the first bullet hits and she sees it, Brittany, falling, in slow motion, on the floor and the next bullet comes for her, so fast she doesn't have time to react, and the force of the bullet, its impact, throws her up and over the balustrades and into the river below. She loses consciousness before the rushing river claims her and the darkness closes in on her, as a hail of bullets try to hit her unconscious body again. But her body just floats, face down, downstream, and they seem satisfied that they have hit the target and they watch as the water claims Don Juan Fernando Jose de la Cruz Morales Lopez's _unica hija_.

She doesn't die though.

She doesn't die.

Of all the things she wishes has happened to her, that fateful day in Mexico, when all she had wanted was take her girlfriend, the love of her life, Brittany S. Pierce, on a vacation at her father's house, she wishes she had died, along with her, when the bullet hit her, too. Because surely, surviving and being haunted by memories of her father, her girlfriend, is too much to bear for her.

But the bullet, for some strange reason, misses a major artery, only hits bone and sinew on her shoulder, misses her heart by inches, and she doesn't know how long she floats down that river, before someone pulls her out and saves her.

* * *

**_A/N: Thanks for reading and reviewing. I expect this will get a mixed response from readers, as this is very dark and angsty, but I'd wanted to write in a different verse, and also because like a true nerd, I am a superhero fan and I wanted to write my own Glee superhero story - but without the superpowers and a more or less realistic story. Anyway, hope you like it. The story is pretty much finished in my head, more or less, but would love to know what you think of this story. _**

**_Many thanks to my beta, DragonsWillFly for the beta-ing and encouraging me to write this._**


	2. Prologue: The Island

**_There is just enough Christ in me_**  
**_To make me feel almost guilty_**  
**_Is that why God made us bleed_**  
**_To make us see we're Humans Being?_**  
**_- Van Halen_**

* * *

She drifts in and out of sleep, sight blurry and hazy, faces drifting in and out of her consciousness, as she lies on a bed, feverish and in pain. There are voices, the sound of thunder and lightning, darkness, something crackling, and she remembers, through her own confusion and pain and fever, the pain - the unbelievable, indescribable searing pain, as someone holds her down and she sees a glinting knife against a lamp and there's a soothing, disembodied voice somewhere, explaining that the bullet needs to be taken out, the wound needs to be cauterized, and she doesn't understand, and the voice seems so far away, but the pain, the feel of cold, sharp metal entering her chest, the agony, the smell of blood, makes her scream, scream like she's never screamed before and she hears someone shout, "Shut her the fuck up or we're all dead!" but she keeps screaming from the unbelievable, excruciating pain, but then she smells burning flesh, and she realizes she is smelling her own skin burning and she tries to scream again but someone has put a piece of rag against her mouth and she screams with all her might, screams muffled and agonized and full of rage and she thinks the pain will never end, will go on forever, but then she feels herself slide into unconsciousness and pass out from the pain.

Later, much later, she doesn't know when, she wakes up, still in agony, with a bandaged, bruised damaged body, wounds and scratches on her face, a headache and pain everywhere.

At first she doesn't know where she is.

She remembers that it is raining. That it is cold. That she has goosebumps on her arms. That the bed is hard and wooden and only covered with a mat and that the blanket she is covered with is riddled with holes and is tattered and scratchy and itchy. She remembers that the pillow beneath her head is hard and small, just enough for only a small part of her head to rest in.

She remembers that it is a small shack made of wood, rickety and unsteady and cold. It is sparse, there is nothing more. Between the slats on the floor she can see ground, stones, nothing more.

She remembers a window framing the world outside, of trees and mountains, of so much green and bruised, dark, steel grey sky and heavy rain and wind blowing through the leaves and the tattered, dirty, greasy curtain.

The room is empty but for the pair of harsh, grey eyes staring down at her with little sympathy and much disdain in her eyes. The woman is tall, blonde, with high cheekbones, a thin frame. She is wearing a dark army fatigues. She does not speak, only stares at Santana with her hard and piercing and unforgiving eyes. Later, she finds out that her name is Coach Sue. From then on, she wonders why her name is Coach Sue. But Coach Sue never gives her the opportunity to talk to her of such things, because Coach Sue despises idle talk and doesn't speak unless she needs to.

At first Santana doesn't know where she is, or why she's here, doesn't remember anything that has happened prior to her being there, thinks it's a dream, actually. But then the door reveals a limping Mike Chang, face all bruises and wounds, with bullet wounds to the shoulder and to the stomach and to the thigh bandaged badly by the same said Coach Sue. One look at Mike Chang, and everything comes rushing back. And there is pain and sadness and rage, always the rage, now directed at Mike Chang, who'd failed her, at a time when she needed him the most. She doesn't need to say it though. Mike Chang knows it. Mike Chang knows it and accepts it and bows his head in deep shame, because he knows he's failed her, because they both survived and her father and Brittany didn't.

Coach Sue moves with such lightning efficiency for a woman her age that both Santana and Mike are stunned speechless. Santana is distraught, upset, grief-stricken, but most of all, furious beyond description, she is rage, rage personified, and she has decided, in an instant, that she will turn that rage towards Mike, and she attempts to get up, the adrenaline shooting up her body, her heart beating so fast against her rib cage she doesn't even notice that she is bleeding through her bandages. But she never makes it past the bed, because Coach Sue has roughly pushed her back with a practiced hand, shaking her head, as she lays a hand firmly on her chest. Santana wants to fight Coach Sue, wants to struggle against her, but she finds that she cannot, finds, actually, after the initial impulsive urge to strangle, kick, punch and otherwise murder Mike Chang, that she is weak beyond comprehension, that she can barely breathe, that her torso, her legs, her arms can barely move, that there is pain everywhere and as Coach Sue tries to calm her down, and there is a sound, a deep, loud, inhuman, agonized sound that she isn't sure at first where it's coming from, until she realizes that it is coming from her, and that she is screaming and screaming and screaming and she sees Coach Sue move a second before she loses consciousness. Coach Sue hits her and she loses consciousness. Later, Coach Sue apologizes, tells her she had no choice but to hit her, because Santana was being hysterical and she hadn't wanted anyone who might still be looking for the pair, for her and Mike, to be drawn to them, because Coach Sue already suspects, from the helicopters above, and the noise of distant engines on the shore, that there are people looking for the rich Latina heiress whose father had just been brutally gunned down in cold-blood off the coast of a Mexican resort.

* * *

Sleep is never peaceful. Sleep is never the kind of rest that Santana has always taken for granted: restful, tranquil, soothing, relieving. She never wakes up looking forward to yet another day. She finds, on those first few days, weeks, months, that she actually would rather prefer never to wake up again. She finds she would rather die, than sleep - because in sleep she is visited by the images of her father, in one, alive and well and laughing and talking to her, and in another, all blooded and dying and dead, and images of her girlfriend, in one, tall and beautiful and graceful and all hers, and in another, dead and cold and gone. She finds she would rather die, than actually wake up again, reminded that her father is dead, her girlfriend is dead, and that she saw both of them die before her very eyes.

And there are times when she thinks she should have died instead. Because death would have been preferable to being alive, but feeling like you're a ghost.

Santana Lopez has become the ghost of a shell of her former self.

* * *

Santana lays in bed for what she thinks are months.

She can barely move for the pain on her chest and her back. Her right arm is broken and is in a rough, makeshift sling. Her leg is broken and bruised and swollen and she finds that when she tries to move it, there is pain shooting up her leg, like a jolt of electricity that makes her wince in pain and grit her teeth and fall back on the bed, writhing in agony. She is afraid that she may never walk again, but she eventually does, albeit painfully and laboriously, especially the first months after her recovery. For months afterwards, she will be dependent on, first, Mike Chang, then on a staff that she leans on so she can take the weight off of her injured leg, and she will not be able to walk for a few months without a sharp pain shooting up from her leg to her hip and back and chest and each movement is agony for her. Long after the physical pain has abated and her joints and scars ache only during the coldest of winter nights, what lingers is the pain within, the pain that can never be taken away by physical activity and drills and herbal medicine and the best doctors in the world.

* * *

Sometimes, she thinks about killing herself, when the reality of it all proves too overwhelming, too much, and there is the weight of her loss bearing down on her, suffocating her, making it hard to breathe, and the pain is just too much that she feels like she might as well die.

For the longest time, she will be unable to describe this feeling. But once, when she was young, and her father had taken her to a dogfight in Mexico and she'd seen how the bigger, more ferocious dog had torn the smaller dog, and all that was left of the smaller dog was bone and gristle and skin and blood and the unbelievable stench of waiting death, Santana realizes this is what she feels now: like a massive, ferocious, mad dog has bitten into her, has sunk his teeth into her very soul, has pulled ferociously at her, body and soul, pulled at her bit by bit, chunk by chunk, ripping out skin and muscle and bone and grinding everything in his teeth, until all that is left is…nothing but emptiness. An unbelievable, indescribable emptiness that Santana thinks will never quite be filled ever again.

She has thought of ending the pain quite a few times, but she has never been alone, and she is never left alone, and Santana hates Coach Sue and Mike even more. Mike most especially.

Mike, who starts to wear a guilt-ridden, ashamed look every time he sees her, and averts his gaze whenever she tries to look at him, and Coach Sue, who has a perpetual look of distaste, disapproval, annoyance and a scowl on her face, as if Santana is the daughter she's never wanted and will never measure up to her, the thing that is inconveniencing Coach Sue whenever Santana asks for a drink, or food or a softer bed or a warmer blanket.

Once, when it was warm enough outside for all three to have a dinner in the night time by a bonfire that Coach Sue has created for them, Coach Sue is comfortably eating a roasted animal that she has caught, killed, skinned and cooked herself. Santana had limped to the camp fire with a staff and had refused Mike's offers to help her, angrily pushing at him with her staff and nearly losing her balance doing so.

Mike, sitting beside her then, is given a piece of the animal. Coach Sue is an even worse mood that night than most nights, or days, and refuses to acknowledge Santana's presence, when Santana requests for a part of the meat. When Mike moves to give her a portion of the meat, as any practiced servant who's been working for a rich person his whole life is wont to do, Coach Sue makes an annoyed grunt and puts an arm on Mike's chest, stays him from giving Santana the meat.

"What the fuck?" Santana sputters now. "I'm fucking starving!"

"Coach," Mike says now, concern on his face. "Miss Lopez needs to eat."

Coach Sue glares at Mike. Mike recoils. "Are you her fucking boy Friday or manservant or something? You killed this animal, you have a right to eat. _Miss_ Lopez, only sits around waiting for us to feed her like the spoiled little rich snot-nosed brat that she is."

Anger flares in Santana then and she spats out, "In case you haven't noticed, _Coach_, I've just witnessed my father and my girlfriend murdered in front of me, and I have been shot at and I've just survived a fall from a raging river so excuse me if I am a bit indisposed at the moment."

Coach Sue just stares at her, face impassive, before she says, "Well, sorry to hear that, princess. But you've gotta earn your keep. You don't hunt, you don't fucking eat, those are the rules."

Coach Sue then sits back on her haunches and starts to eat her meat with much relish. Mike slowly sits back on his haunches as well, cautiously and carefully, as his gaze goes from Santana to Coach Sue and back, before he slowly puts the meat to his teeth and thoughtfully starts to nibble on the meat. As Santana stares at Coach Sue, Coach Sue proceeds to eat the meat with much relish, oblivious to Santana and the hunger in her stomach.

For some reason Santana finds herself irritated at this tall, scrawny, unkempt, rude, tough, annoying, bossy older woman, and she finds herself lunging for the meat on Coach Sue's stick. But Santana has underestimated Coach Sue, because Coach Sue, in one practiced movement, quickly pushes Santana back with a loud whack to Santana's chest, sending Santana landing on her butt. Santana ignores the pain that shoots up from her chest, and the pain from the chest wound she has had, and lunges back again for Coach Sue's food, but Coach Sue successfully rebuffs her again and on the third try that has Santana landing on her haunches again, Coach Sue, despite herself, finds herself laughing.

"Gotta admit, princess, you've got spunk," Coach Sue says, as she continues to nibble on her meat. When Santana tries to pick herself up again, Coach Sue pauses, looks at Santana smugly and says, "I wouldn't do that if I were you. Unless you want to spend the rest of the week on your back again."

Santana swallows, considering this before she sits back, sulking and scowling at Coach Sue.

Coach Sue notices the dark expression on her face and so she stops and says, "You hungry princess?"

Santana only scowls.

Coach Sue grins devilishly. She turns to Mike, nods and instructs him to get something.

Santana wonders what it is as Mike reluctantly stands up to get something. Mike comes back quickly, with a hastily made bamboo cage, in which a small bird is caged. Mike sets it beside Coach Sue. Coach Sue gets the bird and says to Santana, "You hungry princess?" When Santana doesn't answer, Coach Sue pulls out the sheathed knife she has hooked on her belt. The knife glints against the fire as she brandishes it in front of Santana. "Kill this bird and you get your dinner."

Coach Sue throws the knife at Santana's feet and shoves the cage nearer to the younger woman.

Santana is so angry now, so angry at being treated like a common girl, that she snatches the knife and pulls the cage nearer.

She angrily pulls the bird out of the cage. The bird is tied by its feet and it flaps about, panic-stricken, agitated, trying to escape, its wings broken and bleeding. She grabs the knife by the hilt, lifts the knife above her, and tries to aim the tip of the knife on the bird's body. But at that same instant, the bird turns and Santana sees its eyes, terrified, as its stares up at Santana, squawking, and to Santana's mind, begging for its life. Santana feels it then, a moment's hesitation. She knows she shouldn't feel like the bird has a mind, actually has never thought of any animal apart from human beings, as having minds, but as she kneels there, in front of the bird, she feels this guilt at having to take another life, and as she finds herself dropping the knife and retreating back to her corner away from the fire.

Coach Sue has been casually watching all this from her corner and when Santana throws the knife down in resignation and defeat, Coach Sue scoffs at her, with more disdain and disgust than she has ever displayed in front of the younger woman and she spits out, "Pussy." Santana, defeated, knowing right then and there, that she hates Coach Sue, looks up at Coach Sue as Coach Sue taunts her and says, "You think that's hard? Try being water boarded, _that's_ hard."

Santana doesn't know then, but that taunt, coming from an older woman who barely even knows her, makes Santana angry again, and she again tries to lunge at Coach Sue, grabbing the knife she's thrown on the grounds, but before she can do so, she finds herself pinned against the ground with Coach Sue's knee against her throat, the blade of the knife against her eyes, and the calmest eyes looking down at her, as Coach Sue scrunches up her mouth in scorn at Santana and she says, "Do something stupid like that to me, again, _princess_, and I will slit your throat, make no mistake about it."

Santana's heart is beating wildly against her chest as she breathes in and out through her nose, nervously. Coach Sue only stares down at her with her fierce, glowering eyes, before she lets her go.

Santana chokes and coughs, takes in lungfuls of air, as she scrambles to her feet and goes back to her corner.

Coach Sue sits back, and stares at her. "I like you. You've got spunk, princess. You've got potential. You've got rage. I like that. But you've got to control that rage, princess. It's going to get you killed. Aim that rage somewhere else, princess. Like finding out who murdered your father and your girlfriend. Like taking them out one by one. That's a better use of your rage than taking out little old me." She then looks at Santana directly now and says, "That rage's going to get you killed. But that rage's going to keep you alive, too. Long as you know how to use it."

* * *

One day, when she feels she is well enough to escape the island, she gets up early, grabs a knife lying by a tree near their hut and is preparing to set out when Mike wakes and asks her where she is going.

"Home," she only answers.

"Santana…" Mike says now. Santana stops, is not used to being on a first-name basis with her bodyguard, but they have long ago dispensed with the formalities, because Coach Sue likes to mock them for it. They are in an island, where the rules of high society and wealth no longer apply. Santana requests Mike to just call her Santana. Mike acquiesces to her request. "It's thousands of miles to the mainland. Hell, we don't even know where we _are_. We have no way of getting there unless we ask for Coach Sue's help. We could run into pirates or other kinds of danger when we're on the sea…we could drift somewhere else…we could…"

"You could get back home and give your father's enemy the pleasure of finishing off what they started," Coach Sue says now, walking towards them, arms crossed in front of her. "You could walk into a trap and get killed, princess. You could walk into a trap and get other people killed. Like Mike."

As she stops in front of the two, Coach Sue says, "And I'm pretty sure a lot of people would love to see you die a second time. You're probably more valuable dead than alive. These people don't like having loose ends. You're the loose end, princess."

When both Santana and Mike look at Coach Sue in surprise, Coach Sue raises an eyebrow, "I may live on an island, princess, but I know what's going on outside. It's been all over the news, princess. Rich heiress with a rich, powerful father? Murdered while on holiday during _Dia De Los Muertos_? I can see the irony there. I'm guessing the girlfriend was just collateral damage…"

But Santana doesn't listen to her, hobbles away from them both, so Coach Sue, irritated, walks towards her, plants herself in front of Santana, effectively blocking her way away from the camp and Coach Sue says, "Fine. Let's do it your way. If you beat me, right here, right now, you get to leave this godforsaken place."

Santana takes the challenge.

Without warning the older woman, she puts out her left hand, makes to punch the older woman, but the older woman is lightning fast, and Santana not only is rewarded with a punch on the face that makes her head snap back, but she is on her back, on the ground, _again_, with Coach Sue's knee on her chest and as Santana tries to fight the panic, Coach Sue gives her an evil, triumphant smile.

"What did I tell you princess? You ain't ready for the real world," Coach Sue says now. "You know what I learned from being on the strike team when we were about to extract Noriega from Panama? Don't be stupid."

When Santana tries to struggle against Coach Sue, Coach Sue pushes her knee further on Santana's chest as Coach Sue says again, "You know what I learned from being on the strike team when we were about to extract Noriega from Panama? Don't be an idiot."

When Santana manages to free her left hand and tries to push Coach Sue away, Coach Sue gets up, brushes the dirt from her pants. Coach Sue leans down, offers her right hand to Santana and Santana, with a huff, takes the hand, and Coach Sue, without a word, hits Santana hard on the face.

"What the fuck, Coach?" Santana says now, as she lands on the ground, hard, the rage beginning to boil at the pit of her stomach.

Coach Sue grins, "You know what I learned from being on the strike team when we were about to extract Noriega from Panama? Don't trust _anyone_."

When Santana finally is able to stand up, with the help of Mike, and both she and Mike stand in front of Coach Sue, unsure of what to do next, Coach Sue stares at them, quiet for a few seconds, before she cocks her head and says, "Look, I really don't give a shit about the two of you. You can leave this island for all I care and get murdered. Your call. But everyone thinks you're both dead now. I think that's probably to both of your advantage. Especially you, Santana. It's a chance for you to start over again. But if you're really intent on getting yourself killed, you should probably let things die down, let people forget what's happened, before you go back out there. In the meantime, princess, you are grossly unskilled, uncoordinated, pretty much useless in real-world life-skills, what's a bit more time to stay here and be able to live a few more months before you get back out there and have people eat you alive, especially now that your dead father is no longer around to protect you from the worst?"

They are silent for a while, before Mike turns to Santana and says, "She's right, Santana. We should probably stay here for a while. Let things die down, before we go back out there." When Santana doesn't say anything, Mike hurriedly says, with worry and concern apparent on his face, "It's not safe, Santana. It's not safe for you. Or for any of the other people you care about. You're going to keep everyone else in harm's way this way."

For a moment, Santana thinks, there's no one else.

No one else to care about.

No one else to _live_ for.

They all died that day in that house in Mexico, but she doesn't say this to Mike. Instead, she swallows, tries to keep the tears from her eyes, and nods, afraid to speak and choke on her words.

She is thus glad that Mike and Coach Sue stop her. Because really, she's not ready for the outside world yet. Because there's nothing out there for her.

There's really nothing out there.

She follows Mike and Coach Sue back to their camp.

* * *

It is not the first time she tries to escape though.

She has tried to escape a few more times. But she had been wholly unprepared for any kind of escape or plan or basic knowledge about topography, transport, survival, food or even basic strategy planning.

The island is deceptively large, for example. And she is unable to explore the other parts of the island because most of it is covered in jungle and undergrowth, surrounded by mountains and trees and creatures, harmless or poisonous or dangerous ones, that she isn't familiar with.

The beach where they are camped is in itself tricky. It is rocky, surrounded by cliffs, the waves always rough as they crash against the cliffs, even during low tide. The wind is strong and harsh. From what Santana can see of the other parts of the island, there are no beaches, only cliffs and sea and jungle.

She has no basic knowledge of how to make even a simple raft, how to cut or tie up wood to make a raft, does not know how to even store food to make it last longer, or hunt, skin and cook food.

She realizes if she _does_ try to escape, she will die.

* * *

It's surprising how you notice a lot of things when you are stuck in an island with no-one else but your bodyguard, and an old, crazed and you're pretty convinced, psychotic woman who will probably slit your throat in your sleep just for fun.

It's an island where time seems to slow down to a crawl, and Santana notices the butterflies that flit through the leaves of the trees, the flies at noon, the mosquitoes in the early evening, the moths that fly around near the flame of the lamp at the night. She begins to notice the shadows that play on the wall, the wind in the trees, and the long, slow, passing of time, where each day bleeds into the next, so much so that one day is pretty much the same as the next day and there is no difference between the days but the harshness of the sun, or the heaviness of rain or the heat and the wetness and the coldness of the night. And Santana's wounds eventually heal, slowly turn into scars, and she doesn't know how long she and Mike stay there, and she feels like it had been years, but in truth it could have only been weeks, or months, she doesn't know. The physical wounds heal, turn into scars, and will, in time, eventually fade, but the deeper wounds, the ones that haunt her, the ones that make it impossible for her to sleep, do not heal at all, in fact fester and gnaw at her soul and it mingles with her rage and emptiness and her desire for retribution.

Yes, it's surprising how much you notice when you are stuck in an island with no-one else but your bodyguard, and an old, crazed, psychotic.

Like how much you notice that Mike Chang is really good. Like really good with a lot of things. Like the hundred and one things he can do with bamboo. He cuts down bamboo and shows Santana how to drink fresh water from it, or how to trap fish with it, or how to make fire with it, or how to make sharp objects with it. Santana learns to be a good student and because there is nothing else to do on the island, she absorbs whatever Mike has to teach her, with eagerness born out of a desire to distract her from her own self-indulgent, self-destructive thoughts. What fascinates her though are the spears and arrows Mike Chang fashions from bamboo, and when Mike creates Santana her own bow and arrow and teaches her how to shoot it, Santana is grateful. Santana develops a lifelong aversion to guns, but the bow and arrow - this makes sense for her.

Mike also proves useful in everything else. A fact that surprises Santana. Mike shows her how to fish. Mike shows her how to eat insects, tells her locusts, ants, tree bugs and worms are a great source of protein, and are actually much more environmentally friendly than eating pork or beef. He catches wild pigs, wild chickens, wild birds even a snake or two, for their meals and teaches Santana how to kill, skin and cook them. Whatever initial queasiness and nausea Santana had at killing a creature slowly dissipates as she is faced with the primal need for survival.

Mike even builds them a makeshift house made out of bamboo and coconut leaves. Makeshift, Mike says, because he doesn't know how long they will be there, how long before they think it's safe to leave the island, how long before they get rescued. But as Santana hobbles to Mike's handiwork, she is struck by its permanence, not by the fact that it's a temporary shack to shelter them from the worst of the tropical storms the island has to offer, by the suggestion that they may stay there long, or maybe stay there forever, a thought that Santana doesn't particularly relish.

She vows to leave the island as soon as she could.

* * *

They would have left the island soon enough, Santana thinks, but for that time, in the dawn, when having woken up early, Santana hears it.

She isn't sure what it is, but it's a strange sound she hasn't heard before.

It is quiet.

Unusually quiet.

She tries to move, but then Mike puts a hand on her arm, and puts a finger to his lips, shaking his head, indicating that she be quiet. Santana knits her eyebrows, but realizes that it is too quiet, like something is about to happen. She watches as Mike moves to grab an axe and a knife and gives Santana another one. He slowly crouches to one of the windows and peers out, sees nothing, looks at Santana and indicates that she stay in the hut as he goes out to see what is going on.

He is barely out of the hut when someone breaks in and heads straight for Santana, managing to incapacitate her with an arm to her neck and twisting an arm to her back. The move makes it impossible for Santana to defend herself and for a moment she panics, but then she remembers Mike telling her to focus, even through her panic or rage so she can do what needs to be done. Santana had once argued that since she isn't really that tall, she is at a disadvantage with larger assailants. But Mike had shaken his head and tells her it was never about height or size or strength, but about balance, structure, stance, about the awareness of one's body movement. "It's about reducing tension, conserving energy, not wasting it, being fluid, attacking and defeating in the fastest way possible, rooting yourself effectively, bracing yourself against the ground, so that the force of the hit can be far more devastating," she remembers Mike saying. She struggles now to put that theory to the test. She needn't have worried though, because Mike comes back and promptly and swiftly disarms the man, throwing Santana forward, onto the floor, as the man turns on Mike instead. The two have a scuffle, and throw in punches and kick and hit each other.

Santana, trembling, grabs her bow and arrow and her knife and tries to put the arrow into her bow, but she feels weak and cannot seem to do so. Mike grabs the man and manages to put his arm on the man's neck, but the man is powerful and is able to get away and in a second is out of the hut and running across the camp.

Santana attempts to shoot an arrow again, but cannot, but seconds after she puts her bow down, an arrow shoots through the back of the retreating man and she follows where the arrow comes from, and it comes from Coach Sue, standing just outside the window of their hut, her eyes cold and hard and steely in the early dawn creeping through the sky.

Coach Sue barely looks at Santana now as she says, "Don't ever hesitate ever again. He wouldn't."

Then Coach Sue goes to the man, who is now struggling and twitching from the pain, and with the knife she has in her hand, she slits his throat and the body stops twitching, grows slack, and is still. A dark pool of blood begins to gather around the man.

Santana feels the onslaught of nausea wash over her and she tries to choke the bile down as Coach Sue casually goes to their hut, pauses by the doorway, looks from Mike to Santana and back, and announces, flatly, "We have to move. It's not safe here. I don't know who that guy is, but there might be more. _Move_."

* * *

And so they move inland, through thick jungle undergrowth, through trees and brush and bush and vines and grass.

Coach Sue is systematic, no non-sense, posts a lookout for when the two others sleep, makes sure they don't leave a trail. She mutters about having been saddled by two younger people and how Santana,who is the least skilled among the three and therefore the most useless, is slowing them down. At one point she says, "This is why I never had kids or will never have kids in the future. Don't have the time, don't have the patience, don't have the uterus."

Her comments just make Santana more determined to keep up and they do eventually end up safe in a part of the jungle, the side of a mountain, that has a small cave where they can all stay during the worst of the storms that regularly visit the island, as well as a good lookout point for when they spot intruders. There is a small river running, just a few meters from the cave, and Mike hurries to make another make-shift for them.

They'd have stayed in the cave, camped out, had it not been for another man lurking about the camp, that Mike catches one day on his way to camp, from hunting in the jungle.

This time, Mike doesn't hesitate. He slits his throat and tosses the man's body down the river below.

Santana swallows, shudders, averts her gaze when Mike turns to her.

* * *

"Who do you think it was?" Santana asks Mike once, when she sees him exercising in the early morning light.

For a while, Mike doesn't answer, concentrates on what he is doing.

He is standing in front of a tree, and has stuck different kinds of sticks onto the tree and is methodically, rhythmically hitting the sticks over and over again. Later, he explains it's his own simple version of a wooden dummy, and he doesn't know how long they will be on the island, and since he has never missed a day of practicing, he has decided to do a makeshift one.

At this time, Santana realizes that what Coach Sue has observed, has said, has articulated, is correct. She is pretty useless and unskilled. And this is never made more obvious than now, when Mike, her quiet, stoic, efficient bodyguard, reveals himself to be quite the master of a lot of things. Santana suspects now that where it not for Mike she'd probably be dead as well. She realizes the reasons her father has chosen this man over the others to guard Santana. Mike has spelled the difference between survival and death.

Mike is graceful, quick, sharp.

Santana feels a twinge of pain, because Mike graceful, quick and sharp reminds her of Brittany. Everything reminds her of Brittany.

Mike continues to methodically hit the tree dummy over and over again, before he stops, and asks, "Who do I think is what?"

Santana is silent as Mike resumes what he is doing, before Santana says, "Who do you think it was that killed my father."

Mike falters, stops, unable to speak, and Santana can see the visible swallow he makes, before he resumes hitting the dummy again and again with much greater force.

Whenever Santana tries to think of who has betrayed her father, she comes up blank. William Schuester is too much of a wimp to do anything. William Schuester, her father's best friend, this innocuous-looking accountant slash lawyer who helps her father with the day-to-day running of his companies, her father's right-hand man who has a formidable arsenal of long-sleeved checkered and striped shirts, vests, hair gel and a list of karaoke songs ready to be whipped out at a moment's notice during business meetings with foreign clients. But then she thinks, her father has known William Schuester since he was a young man. William Schuester was a self-made man from a small town in Ohio, married to a his high school sweetheart, used to teach high school during the day and took classes at night to have himself certified, finally leaving his job to become a lawyer and an accountant. He has a working class eagerness and earnestness around him that Santana, more than once, wants to wipe off his face, but her father had trusted him with his very life and she cannot, for the life of her, imagine why he would have his best friend and her father killed in cold blood.

Johann Smythe, Sebastian Smythe's father, maybe as much of a weasel as his asshole of a son who went to the same private school Santana did, but he's a stickler for rules and wouldn't want to be caught dead with this. Al Motta, Sugar Motta's father? Rumor has it Al Motta, her father's other former associate, is connected with the mafia, but she isn't sure about this. Tanaka, a disgruntled former associate of her father, was bitter and angry about the turn of his fortunes, but she didn't think he'd go so far as to have her father killed. Quentin Fabray, Quinn's father, another former associate of her father's that her father had bought out of his shares, wouldn't also take the time or go out of his way to have her father killed. Besides, she and Quinn practically grew up together, and their families had been to each other's baptisms and first communions and first everything. Santana realizes her knowledge of her father's activities are so limited, and she wishes now she knew more about what had been going on right before her father was murdered right before her very eyes.

Santana realizes there as many possible culprits as there are friends, and she begins to have a headache, wondering who it is.

Finally, Mike speaks, breaking Santana's train of thought. "You shouldn't think about these things Santana."

They are silent again, as Mike methodically hits the dummy.

Later, Santana thinks, what bothers her about how her father and her girlfriend die is how methodical it all was. She explains to Mike that if it had been a knife, there would have been an intimacy there, but the guns, the long-range rifles that take out the guards guarding her father's house, the machine guns and handguns that take out each one inside, the bullet to the chest that her father receives, the bullets that Brittany's helpless body receives, the bullet she and Mike receive, all tell Santana how calculated, cold, indifferent, cold-blooded it all was. Like it had all been rehearsed to perfection that it had been so easy to take out. There had been indifference, disconnection, the killers knew what they were doing and they hadn't cared one or the other what happened. And in that instant, Santana realizes how fragile life is, how fragile the body is, how it takes a longer time to create life, and only seconds to destroy it.

As Santana stares at Mike, she says, so softly that Mike barely hears her, "Everyone's been taken away from me, Mike. I've got nothing. I've got nothing to live for."

As she watches Mike, Santana thinks about it. As far as the outside world is concerned, she's dead. Dead and buried. It's true. It's a chance to start over again. To have a new life. She has no money, no family, no friends, only Mike fucking Chang, but maybe she'll get by.

But then a flash of her father, her girlfriend, just before they die, comes to her and she realizes that she can't just leave all that behind. Leave all that and not even avenge their deaths. She owes them that at least.

Her father once said, you're only really dead when everyone has forgotten you.

She already knows she wants to keep them alive, in her memory, in her heart and mind.

They deserve that at least.

* * *

Santana loses track of the time.

Seconds tick by, bleed into minutes, minutes bleed into days, days bleed into weeks, weeks into months. And she stops counting time by the second or the minutes or the hours that tick by, and stops to keep time by the watch she has, the watch that has stopped ticking anyway. She starts to measure days by the turn of the tide, by the turn of the moon, by the seasons - the heavy rains that come and go, the hot summer months that make it impossible for everyone to do anything.

Meanwhile, as she learns to track and hunt and kill animals, as she learns to till the soil, as she learns to chop wood for fire, as she learns how to use spears and bows and arrows from Mike and Coach Sue, who both teach her through the long, lazy, boring, hot night how to fight, how to punch, and dodge and kick and _survive_, her hair grows long and dark, tied back in a ponytail, her skin grows a darker shade of sun-kissed brown, the wound on her face fades into an angry scar, the wounds on her chest heal into starbursts of gunshot scars, her shoulders, arms and legs become muscled from the tilling and harvesting food, from chopping and carrying wood to the camp, from running around, from doing a lot of things she wouldn't have otherwise done outside, with her driver and her maid and housekeeper and butler and everyone else. She learns to spear darting fish that glint silver in the morning light, hand and eyes quick as lightning. She learns to shoot an arrow into the air, hitting its target, a boar, wild chicken, square on the body. She learns to kill birds without batting an eyelash. She learns to climb trees and crawl through underbrush as quickly and as quietly as she can. She learns a stealthy, practiced gait Mike and Coach Sue have taught her so she can walk in on an enemy unnoticed, learns a particular way of sensing her surroundings that sharpens her powers of observation, helps her know from an unusual silence or the sudden rush of birds whether there is an intruder or there's a coming storm. It's not ESP exactly, Mike explains, it's learning to be attuned to your surroundings, the very same thing he has learned in order to spot which person is a potential threat to Santana at any given time.

But it's her face that changes most of all.

Her face sheds the innocence and youth of twenty one. Her face now seems to have grown older, darker, weathered. Santana Lopez has learned to mask any emotion, expression now always that of deep concentration, eyebrows knitted, dark eyes, framed by thick, dark lashes, sharp and intense and bright, always watching and watchful and observant, expression never giving away anything. It is one of the things that Mike and Coach Sue have taught her - that she should learn to control her emotions, her facial expressions, especially when she fights, because it gives away the game. Her voice never betrays emotion as well - is always level, controlled, calm.

It is the one thing many people notice about Santana Lopez years later, when she comes back from the dead. That Santana Lopez is now different, older, detached, subdued, somber.

* * *

Santana thinks she would never get off the island, but one day though, Santana Lopez wakes up to the loud sounds of wood being chopped, footsteps, noise, and when she opens her eyes, and goes to the doorway, she finds Coach Sue in the middle of their camp, lashing together long pieces of bamboo to fashion a raft.

Santana stares at her, amazed, wondering what she is doing, and Mike comes out of the hut as well, equally curious and puzzled.

Finally, when Santana finds the voice to speak, to ask what it was for, Coach Sue impatiently says, "Are you blind? This is your ticket home. You're going home."

It wasn't the last they would see of the island though.

They never get home that day.

Or any day after that.

Not for a long time anyway.

Life, it would seem, has other plans for Santana.

* * *

_**A/N: That's it for this chapter. Many thanks for reading and for leaving kind reviews. It is much appreciated and will go a long way in finishing this story - which, as always, is pretty much done in my head, but the reviews, follows, faves ensure that the chapter updates come out faster as well. **__**Many thanks for reading and reviewing the last chapter as well. It is much appreciated, too. **_

_**Those surprised to see Coach Sue might remember her throwaway line about being part of the strike team to extract Noriega from Panama, which for some strange reason I found really funny - because I don't think no one would actually get that reference except people like me, and gave me the idea for this. Bec she is perfect for this obviously.**_

_**Many thanks to the beta, DragonsWillFly, who finally has the extremely dark, angsty Glee fan fic I'd promised I'd write. Thanks for the beta.**_

_**To the readers who left reviews - many thanks for reading and reviewing! Keep 'em coming! Specifically -**_

_**To kutee - Glad you enjoyed it! I hadn't even thought about the Pretty Woman reference in a long time. I suddenly remembered it when you pointed it out. Hope you liked this chap, too.**_

_**To kamooi - Glad you loved the start. Hope this chapter does not disappoint, too.**_

_**To kickangel - Hey! Yes, we can never go wrong with a Latina Superhero. Hope this chapter does not disappoint as well.**_

_**To aviran, pictureofsuccess and Rrondofan - Hope you liked this chapter, too! Cheers!**_


	3. Home

At first she doesn't know where she is.

Her vision is blurry, but there is bright white light behind her eyelids.

But as her eyelids flutter open, she finds blinding sunlight shining directly on her face.

At first she doesn't know where she is, but as her eyes blink open, she realizes her hands are tied up behind her, thick rope cutting through her wrists, pain shooting up through her body.

There are three men standing in front of her, all muscular and big, wearing masks, green camo cargo pants and dirty sleeveless shirts. They seem to be arguing but she doesn't know what about.

They seem to realize that she is waking up, because one of them, who appears to have a mullet sticking out of his mask, turns to hit her right on the face. The impact is so strong it makes her see stars, and she can taste blood in her mouth. Mullet guy is yelling in joy and Santana feels the rage exploding in her chest. She is furious and imagines the many creative ways in which she would eviscerate him and his ilk.

* * *

Matt Rutherford is pissed off.

Correction, Matt Rutherford is _really_ pissed off.

He's been pissed off his whole life. He'd made one bad decision in high school that involved some car stealing, coke, weed, alcohol and getting tangled up in a gang turf war had him end up in juvy. Some petty theft, grand auto theft, drugs and guns later, he'd graduated to the big leagues - with a murder rap on his record and a price on his head and now he's stuck in some godforsaken island doing the clean-up for the fucking Squad because they couldn't kill the girl properly and the girl just couldn't fucking stay _dead_.

Add to that is being stuck with these idiots, Rick "The Stick" Nelson, with his stupid fucking mullet and his smirk and his stupid white-ass whiteness and that perpetual rape-y vibe he keeps bringing off creeps Matt out. Matt runs a hand on his bald head and steals a glance at Azimio, Stick's best friend, who is no better than Stick, and is, Matt suspects, a psychotic sociopath who'd probably started his life of crime by torturing cats and dogs and setting fire to them when he gets bored. Matt suspects Azimio probably has a couple of bodies buried in some backyard or the bottom of the river somewhere.

Matt just wants this over with, but Stick and Azimio obviously want to have their own little Squad-approved fun - which meant pain, torture, perhaps some release, if the time allows. They've been here the whole day and as the day wears on, Matt is getting annoyed, Stick cackling like some fucking hyena, Azimio neighing and guffawing like a fucking idiot and the girl in front of them, all tied up and bleeding, bruised and powerless, rage apparent in her swollen, once beautiful brown eyes, as she tried not to show pain as they hit her and whipped her and kicked at her over and over again. All Matt wanted to do was grab the guns sticking out of Stick and Azimio's waistband and shoot them through the head, but he has his own dues to pay, and he's nowhere near paid them in full, and so he stands there, growing impatient and irritated as the heat and humidity and flies and mosquitoes buzzed around them, made them sweat like the damn natives. As he stays longer in this godforsaken jungle, the more he comes to hate it, to despise it, to wish he'd never gotten involved with all this in the first place.

Fuck how did he get himself into this? Matt wonders.

Azimio unrolls the whip from his hand, takes a step back and starts to whip the girl again and Matt winces, as if he's the one who is being whipped. He has to admire the girl though for not wincing or registering any pain, defiant and seething with rage. He didn't exactly know who she was, just that she had been some rich girl whose father was turning into a liability, an inconvenience to the Union. The Union. Matt silently shudders. You wouldn't want to know the Union. No one crossed the Union. Lopez knew better than that. Lopez _should_ have known better. You didn't piss off Gringo. Gringo was an asshole, but you didn't piss him off. And Lopez had to pay dearly with his life, and that of his only daughter, and her daughter's friend. But why they had to be give the thankless task of torturing the girl now and finishing her off later, was beyond Matt's ken. Matt wanted to end her suffering at least. He was a stupid, petty thief, not a murderer, and definitely not a murderer of girls. This girl must have been beautiful once. But now with her bruises and swollen face, split lip, broken bones, fresh wounds, blood, torn shirt, she is barely recognizable from the pictures in papers and online about the rich father and his heiress being brutally murdered while on vacation in Mexico. Her hair is matted, oily, dirty, face and body unwashed. She reeks of sweat, blood, tears and she smells like she hasn't had a shower in months. But when she barely registers pain and swallows the cry of pain from the whip making contact with her back, with her legs, with her shoulders, with her arms, Matt knows her spirit has not been crushed.

Stick lets out a sound that's midway between a delighted growl and maniacal, crazed yell, hand going through his crotch to make a point and jumping up and down like some fucking psycho kid from hell.

"We don't have the fucking time," Matt says now. "Come on, man, fucking hurry up, boss will be looking for us soon."

This doesn't seem to have the desired effect on Stick though, because it just makes him rush to unbuckle his belt, pop the button from his pants and pull the zipper down hurriedly, motioning to Azimio to hold the girl as he takes a menacing step forward.

_Fuck_, Matt says to himself. He wishes he could stand up to these two, but he's boneless and spineless, that's what he is and the words he wants to say, gets stuck in his throat as Azimio gleefully grabs the girl's legs and parts them for Stick.

As Stick pulls his pants down though, something quick and sharp wheezes by Matt's left ear, to land on Stick's left ass cheek. Another one wheezes by Matt's left ear before he realizes it's an arrow and he drops to his belly as the other arrow lands on Stick's right ass cheek. A third arrow swiftly lands on the thing dangling between his legs, and fourth one shoot right through his back and out of the other, piercing his heart. He lands on the earth, on his knees, clutching at the arrow on his chest and writhing in pain, before he realizes he is dying and he mutters, "Oh, _fuck._"

Matt has barely time to react before a thud on his right reveals to him that the same fate has befallen Stick's best friend, arrows piercing his chest, his arms and his head. Azimio is dead before he lands on the ground, a permanent, shocked, puzzled look on his face, eyes and mouth wide open. Blood starts to flow from his mouth.

Matt rolls to his side, to get out of the way of the rain of arrows, but in a few minutes, he sees the familiar face of Coach Sue, with a displeased, angry look on her steel grey eyes, a disapproving twist to her lips, and arrows in her arms.

"Coach," Matt says now, scrambling to his feet.

Coach Sue is tall and lanky and blonde and all kinds of scary. Nobody crossed with Coach Sue. No one. He does not know why Coach Sue was called Coach Sue, but he did know that people were terrified of Coach Sue.

Coach Sue looks at the bodies of Stick and Azimio with a look of disgust and distaste on her face before she says, "Never did like those two." When Matt looks at her, with fear in his eyes, Coach Sue shrugs, holding up her arrows. "Dunno what happened. My arms slipped. Get rid of the bodies."

Matt nods as Coach Sue goes to untie the girl, who is now confused and seemingly terrified at the same time, looking at Coach Sue with terror in her eyes.

Coach Sue says nothing.

* * *

Santana trudges behind Coach Sue and the boy, her mind racing, trying to figure out what's going on.

Betrayed. Again.

By Coach Sue, who apparently works for whoever might have killed her father.

By Mike, who'd suddenly and conveniently disappeared to god knows where. They had gotten separated trying to escape what, at first, they thought were just regular run-of-the-mill bandits terrorizing the jungle, or hiding out in the jungle, hiding from the police or the military or the DEA or the FBI or god-knows-what-else these people were hiding from.

But now she realizes the so-called bandits had all been sent to make sure she was dead, and that she stayed dead.

She wondered now what her father had gotten himself into. This, she realizes now, seems bigger than she is.

From what she could glean from those two idiots, the Squad, or whoever they were, had screwed up her murder and they'd been having their bit of fun before getting to the business of killing her once and for all and erasing all traces of possible witnesses during that fateful day that would link their bosses to the murder. She'd been quiet, she'd bit her tongue, she'd endured, as she was flogged and hit and kicked and punched by those two men, but she'd been able to get enough to realize how much her death was worth.

The first time she was supposed to be killed, had been forty grand. Forty grand for her, seventy grand for her father. Now, she was worth more than forty grand. The thought does not comfort her. The rage continues to seethe within her. Now she imagines the many creative ways in which she would kill Coach Sue, and Mike, once she finds the bastard.

She doesn't know how long they walk through the jungle, she just knows it is hot and humid and riddled with flies and mosquitoes buzzing around her, attracted to the sweat and the swiftly drying blood and tears on her face. Fresh bruises and wounds on her face and body make her wince with pain but she would be damned before she would let this old bitch see her in pain. Her hands are tied before her, and the man, barely a boy really, is dragging and pulling her along with the rope.

They finally arrive at what seems to be a hustling and bustling camp, with men going around with machine guns and rifles and shot guns slung over their shoulders, driving trucks and jeeps and riding horses, loading crates into and outside trucks. There are chickens and dogs around, and no women at all. Santana can feel eyes on her.

Santana is dragged to what she guesses to be the main building, a hastily made building made of bamboo and scraps of wood, where crates surround the only table in the room, where a man with a goatee and an ear piece is standing, looking at maps, and packs of white powder, getting some of the powder and tasting it and nodding to the men around him. He is clutching a knife with his right hand, twirling it and playing with it and when he sees Coach Sue and Santana and the man approach, he stops, looks at them with clear, sharp eyes and smirks.

"Sylvester," the man says, continuing to smirk as he looks at Coach Sue.

"Goolsby," Coach Sue says coldly.

"I see you've brought us the Lopez girl," the man called Goolsby says.

"I see you're still sending boys to do man's work," Coach Sue says, motioning to the man holding Santana's rope, the man who Santana knows is named Matt. "Your boys got killed trying to get this girl back to you."

Goolsby looks at her and smirks some more. He shrugs as he stabs the table with his knife and says, "They're idiots. I'm glad to be rid of them."

He looks at Santana, who is trying her best not to glare at him, but Goolsby only laughs and says, "Don't look at me like that girl, I didn't kill your father. That shit happened in-house. Can't be helped. It happens. You were just collateral damage."

He takes out his gun now and offers it to Coach Sue.

Coach Sue looks at the gun, then at Goolsby, then says, "I see you're still a tool."

"I see you still don't quite get the game," Goolsby says now, as he aims the gun at Matt's chest and shoots.

The shot reverberates inside the room and Matt is dead before he hits the pavement.

"I was giving you the honor of killing the Lopez girl for me," Goolsby says. "We're on the eve of our biggest shipment of 'D' ever and you're unsure about killing a girl who could probably take a whole cartel down."

Coach Sue takes one look at Santana, shrugs and says, "She's just a girl, Goolsby. Nothing more."

Goolsby stares at Santana for the longest time, before he says, "Yes, but a girl who could get us in trouble."

"A girl who could be of more use alive than dead," Coach Sue points out, "In case they don't keep their end of the bargain."

Goolsby looks thoughtfully at Santana, fiddling with his knife with one hand, and rubbing the side of his face with the barrel of his gun. There is this manic, crazed look on his face, but it wasn't the same look Mullet guy and his friend had, it was more for power, money, and doing everything it takes to get both. So he slowly nods, grins a slow, and in Santana's eyes, menacing grin, and says, "Alright, fuck it, I don't want to be pissed off. I'm in a good mood and I don't want anything to ruin that. Take her away."

And with a wave of his hand, he indicates that Santana be taken away. In a second, her presence is forgotten as Coach Sue takes a step forward and listens as Goolsby starts to talk to her and the others about what appears to be the biggest "shipment" ever. Santana is now wondering what her father had really gotten into. Coach Sue does not even take a look at her.

Before she steps out of the building, a new man clutching her tightly by the elbow, Goolby looks up, calls out his name and calls out, "Oh, and you touch an inch of this girl and you get a bullet through the head, understand?"

The man nods.

Outside, making her way through the camp, Santana realizes where Mike has gone. He is hanging suspended, both hands tied high above him, his body beaten to a bloody pulp, marks of lashing, wounds and bruises lining his upper body, which is bare and caked with blood and mud and now exposed to the elements, flies and mosquitoes circling him as crows stood on the branches of nearby trees, waiting for him to die. His face is unrecognizable, beaten to the same bloody pulp as his body. As she limps beside the man clutching her elbow, she sees that there is no sign of recognition on his face. His body is dangling on what appears to be a big pit with bamboo and iron spikes on the bottom, murky water and what she thinks are crocodiles. She swallows.

The man roughly shoves her to a small, windowless hut and slams the door behind him with a grunt.

* * *

Santana huddles in one corner, not knowing what to feel, or do or say. No one has ventured near her hut since she had been unceremoniously shoved inside. There had been no food or water. Death by starvation, that's one way to go, she bitterly thinks to herself.

She doesn't know how long it's been, it feels like months, although in truth, it is probably more like weeks. For days and nights the camp is busy and she can hear people speaking Spanish and English. The conversations are brief and never reveal more than what is necessary, but since her Spanish has gotten better, she notices recurring words, "D", "Diablo", "Diabla", "Gringo", "Union", "shipment", and some other things. All of it still doesn't make sense, but she realizes that Goolsby, Coach Sue and this whole camp could help her get a lead on who killed her father and her lover and exact her revenge.

She thinks it is no more than a few weeks before she is woken up by a commotion in the camp. It starts with an explosion, then another, and another, and suddenly there are flames licking at the buildings in the camp, flames licking at her hut, and there is noise and confusion and gunfire and suddenly her door is flung open and there's a huge man with a huge knife outlined against the door, a menacing grin on his face as he tries to unbuckle his belt but she notices his body jerk forward, as if someone from behind had tapped him lightly and he crashes to the floor with a loud thud, a knife at his back and his blood slowly seeping from him, making a pool around him. Santana just stares at him, horrified, before a pair of boots steps over him and she recognizes the very white, very veined, long thin hands of Coach Sue Sylvester offering to help her up.

When Santana just stares at her, indecision on her face, not sure whether to trust the older woman or not, Coach Sue makes an impatient noise and says, "There's no time for this, hurry up!"

"How…how do I know I can trust you?" Santana manages to stammer as she stands up with Coach Sue's help.

Coach Sue looks at her with her bright, cold, steely grey eyes and says, "You don't."

Santana limps through the camp with Coach Sue helping her. Coach Sue practically lifts her off the ground and into safety just a few yards away, by the shore of a river with a boat tied to the end of shore, and the almost life-less, nearly unconscious, battered body of Mike lying on the grass.

"Where do you think you're going?" a voice from behind asks coolly.

Coach Sue turns around and there, with a gun aimed at Coach Sue, is Dustin Goolsby. Coach Sue stares back, and says, "None of your business, Goolsby."

Goolsby does not take the gun off of her face, his face inscrutable, before he says, "Shoulda known you were working with Lopez."

Coach Sue says, "I work for no one."

Goolsby makes to say something else but Coach Sue, quick as lightning, punches him on the face and says, "You always did talk too much Goolsby. God I hate your face."

A scuffle ensues as Coach Sue dives for Goolsby and starts to punch him but Goolsby is younger, stronger, more agile and quick and he recovers quickly enough to duck Coach Sue's punches. In a few moments Coach Sue is on her back and Goolsby says, "You always were too old for this business, Sylvester…I…"

But before he could finish what he is saying, he feels something hit him on the back and he topples on a heap on the ground, clutching his head. Behind him is Santana, with a rock in her hands, as Goolsby writhes in pain. Before he could get away, Santana dives for him and asks, "Who killed my father?"

Goolsby doesn't say anything as Santana punches him. "Who fucking killed my father?"

Goolsby manages to say, "I don't know. We don't do names, man. In case we got caught. We just called him Gringo."

Santana makes a noise of frustration. "Why did you kill my father?"

"I was just following orders, kid. Your father was going to talk, he was getting in the way," Goolsby was saying.

Before she could say anything, quick as lightning, Goolsby's hand snatches on his pants and comes up to her throat with a knife with a manic, crazed look on his face. "Kid, you don't know what you're dealing with here."

They hear something cock in the back. "And you don't know who you're dealing with."

Santana doesn't need to turn around to see that it is Coach Sue with a gun.

"Put the knife down Goolsby and let the kid go," Coach Sue says now in a level voice that means business.

Goolsby does as he is told, puts his arms up as Santana gets off of him. Gooslby starts to laugh as Santana stares at him.

"Fucking amateurs!" Goolsby says now. "You are all going to _die_. Ya hear me?! You are all going to fucking die!"

And before either could say anything, Goolsby has a gun on his hands. Fuck where does he keep all his guns? Santana asks herself as she puts her hands up. Before Goolsby can cock the gun though, Coach Sue aims the gun at him and his body jerks back with the impact, landing on his back with a thud.

"Fuck he wouldn't shut up," Coach Sue says, handing Santana the gun. "You'll need this. Go."

Coach Sue helps Santana into the boat before she half-lifts, half-drags Mike's helpless body into the boat. The boat sways with the added weight, and as soon as Mike is in, Coach Sue unties the boat from the shore and gives it a shove.

"What…what about you?" Santana asks now.

Coach Sue shakes her head and grins at Santana for the first time. "Got some business to take care of."

Santana stares at her, long and hard, before she swallows the lump in her throat and says, "Thank you."

Coach Sue makes a disgusted face, "Don't thank me yet."

Coach Sue leans over and searches for something in the grass, and Santana sees Goolsby get up again, wobbly, with a gun in his hand. Why wouldn't this fucking asshole _die_? She asks. She aims the gun at his chest and shoots. Goolsby drops to the ground with a thud.

Coach Sue looks up, grins and says, "Thanks. Don't make a habit of that though." Before the currents completely take the boat down the river, Coach Sue says, "Oh, before I forget!" leans over, grabs something and throws it into the boat.

"What's this?" Santana manages to ask.

"Your ticket outta this place," Coach Sue calls out.

"Thank you," Santana says.

"You've been given a second chance at life, kid," Coach Sue says. "_Don't_ fuck it up."

There is no more to say as Coach Sue watches from the shore, and Santana watches from the boat, boat drifting down the currents. Coach Sue has told her not to gun the engine until they're further down the river. Santana watches as Coach Sue becomes a dot on the shore, lit by the fires and explosions from the camp.

It is a few minutes later that Santana checks what is in the duffel bag Coach Sue has tossed her.

It is a bag of money, with a note on top of it that says, "Survive."

* * *

Santana drifts in and out of sleep, the sky above full of stars, the river silent, the forest full of sights and sounds that she has grown to recognize and be familiar with.

They drift down the river for what seems like forever, and it is nearly dawn when the boat reaches the shore. She doesn't know where they are, but she sees villagers, all short, muscular, mustachioed, skin all bronzed and darkened, pull her and Mike from the boat. She clutches the duffel bag like her life depended on it. They are rushed to a hut where a man with a stethoscope comes to check on them. She loses consciousness from all the exhaustion and sleep deprivation.

* * *

The man turns out to be a doctor, Dr. Martinez, who regularly visits the village. If he is shocked at the kind of abuse her body and that of Mike has gone through, he doesn't show it, although he does say that both need more medical attention than a visiting doctor could provide in a faraway village.

Santana refuses, Mike is too beat up to say anything, but Santana does manage to get Dr. Martinez help with contacting the American Embassy.

A few days later, they are brought to the city and are met by the American consul, who sends them to the first available flight back to the United States.

None of it actually barely registers with Santana, except for the fact that she is home.

* * *

Santana Lopez wakes up with a gasp and surprise.

She'd been having dreams, dreams she cannot recall save for the fact that it is dark and scary and painful and she always wakes up in a sweat. She finds herself momentarily disoriented.

Santana looks around her, uncomprehending, still confused, wondering how she got to this place in the first place. The last thing she remembers…the last thing she remembers…

She blinks. She is not sure what she remembers.

This place looks familiar somehow, she thinks.

She looks around. She sees a large room, a door of oak, a large bed, large pillows, a sofa to the side, a large flatscreen television, a computer, a desk, chairs, a large window covered with billowing curtains, a large closet off to one side. It is, like most of the rooms in the house, richly furnished, but more so than the others, because this is her room, and her father had seen to it that it would be a room fit for his only daughter, a room fit for a princess.

With growing realization, she realizes this is supposed to be her room, large, imposing, a testament to the wealth and excess she lived so carelessly, without thought of the next day or the future. She has brought many women here, impressed them with the size of the room, the expanse of space, the lawn, the house itself, a sprawling mansion that sat on thousands of acres of prime land off in the countryside, hidden away from the world in a canopy of trees, with the massive gate and the long driveway of gravel and pavement, the state-of-the-art burglar alarms and security guards and the best security that money can buy, her father's towering, sprawling, somewhat arrogant symbol of Lopez affluence and success.

She'd often dreamed of this house, a house that's massive and hidden away from the world in a canopy of trees, on top of a hill, with a massive gate and state-of-the-art burglar alarms and security guards and the best security that money can buy.

She'd often dreamed of this room, thought about it through the long, cold, dark nights, through rain and sun, through searing heat and cold, through the pain and hurt and confusion and doubts and fear…always the fear.

It feels strange to be in a place that is not dirt and leaves and grass, to be in a place without the steady buzzing of flies and mosquitoes, and to be in a clean bed, in a clean controlled room, where the heat and cold can be controlled, where at a touch of a button, or a flick of a wrist, food, pressed clothes, her car, or her motorcycle can be at her fingertips in an instant.

She looks and she sees her massive walk-in-closet, has found it untouched, remembers expensive luxury brands bought on a whim or out of boredom, or because she just got tired of her clothes then, the dresser with the large mirror and the hidden safe behind it, where her father had secretly installed a safe for her to store her jewelry in. She looks at her closet and suddenly feels the urge to grab each and every one of them and throw them out the window. But she stops herself at the last minute, knowing that for the sake of keeping appearances, she needs to keep them, needs to make people believe she is still the same person she was before everything went to hell. She knows there will be appearances, interviews, press conferences, the occasional ribbon to be cut, the occasional insufferable party with rich brats to attend to, a charity gala to attend, meetings with her father's board of directors. She knows this like she knows that for the sake of appearances, she must play her part, lead everyone to believe she is exactly the same as she was before. She has never cared for appearances. And more so now, with nothing left to lose. In truth she does not have it in her to care. She thinks she's lost that ability a long time ago. Detachment. This is her norm now. As much a way for her to survive, as it is a way for her to make it easier to detach herself when necessary. There is no need to form relationships, to form friendships. She is here for one, and only one reason.

And then she realizes she is on the floor, at the foot of her bed, putting the bed in between her and the door and the massive windows.

She drops back on the pillows, feels the hard floor beneath her and sighs. The floor, at least, is familiar. She had been irritated at the feel of softness her bed had and couldn't sleep because of it, so she'd grabbed her blanket and her pillows and slept on the floor.

She looks up at the ceiling. Now that she is awake again, she finds she cannot go back to sleep. She watches the shadows trace patterns on the ceiling and on the walls instead and recalls what has happened thus far since she got back to Cosmopolis.

She and Mike had been brought to the hospital, the minute they land on American soil.

It is Quinn who had come first to visit her. Quinn had discarded her flowery print dresses for the severe power suits her internship with an American law firm required of her. She is a law student now and seeing her best friend, all this time, after everything, all the pain and grief, is beyond comprehension. Neither Santana nor Quinn had known what to say or how to start even, so Quinn had started a monologue that Santana is grateful she doesn't seem required to participate in. All Santana remembers is that three years has passed, and everything has changed. Santana doesn't quite know where she fits in all this.

Quinn had said, "…Mr. Schuester and that family lawyer of yours, Cassandra July, came the other day, your doctor says despite everything you'll be fine, and Mr. Schuester and Cassandra have made sure security's beefed up so you're safe, so you don't need to worry. Chief Figgins came earlier just to see if you're okay. He said if you ever need help, to just call him, he'll be more than happy to help."

Santana had not missed the brisk, no nonsense tone of the voice. Quinn has always been a bossy, authoritative person, but this person, taking care of her business, right now, this is new.

Quinn must sense her confusion, because she turns, looks at Santana and apologizes. Quinn explains that Santana had been found feverish and sick and near death, washed up on some shore off the coast somewhere. The American Embassy had sent her and Mike back to American soil and shortly after, she'd come down with a fever. She had been rushed to the hospital and had been drifting in and out of consciousness, feverish for near seven days.

She is told that her return from the dead (how ironic that it would be called that, since her world changed during "Day of the Dead") had been greeted with much fanfare and lack of restraint, a hallmark of American media and its penchant for cheap thrills, drama and the shameless exploitation of other peoples' tragedies. The hateful and vile local and national television networks, with their equally vile news anchors and reporters asking inane questions had been camped outside the hospital, the house, the massive Lopez Consolidated main office, waiting to catch a glimpse of the only survivor of what the media is now tastelessly calling "The Day of the Dead Mexico Massacre". Quinn doesn't mention her face, that of her father and the "friend", Brittany Pierce, who'd just happened to be there and had been shot to death like all the others of the household that had the misfortune of having been in that house that fateful day. Cassandra July and Mr. Schuester are the ones who face the media, answering frivolous media questions such as "How does Miss Lopez feel now? What does it feel like coming back Stateside?" or "What does she think about the new leadership at Lopez Consolidated?" or "Now that Miss Lopez is here, will she be taking the reins for Lopez Consolidated as originally planned?" and regretfully, "How does it feel to be back from the dead?"

Quinn had not said anything about the lack of what passes for a modicum of decency from the reporters, some of whom have gone and interviewed other people close to Santana, like Quinn, whom they've what her best friend feels like, witnessing her father and her girlfriend's death in front of her, and to lose her father and her girlfriend on the same day in a brutal fashion, shot to death multiple times right before her very eyes.

Quinn doesn't say anything, but Santana has seen the video clips of the interviews anyway, and says nothing about it.

Quinn had broken through her thoughts then, saying, rather apologetically, "I'm sorry. I thought we'd lost you. You'd been missing for months when they had all declared everything all but hopeless. I hadn't wanted to believe you were gone." Quinn swallows, unable to go on but then she looks up at Santana. "You're my best friend Santana, we grew up together. We're family…Our dads were best friends…I couldn't just…give up that easily…"

Santana hadn't known what to say to that. Quinn had been on the verge of tears, but she swallows, looks up at the ceiling, uncomfortable at this rare show of emotion, tries to compose herself, looks at Santana again and smiles.

She gives Santana an up-to-date report on what has been happening in the city, in everyone else's life, in the company, since Santana had gone. Quinn pushes on, donning a false cheerfulness, amidst the awkwardness and discomfort of seeing Santana Lopez again, the very same friend Quinn and everyone else had thought dead, and had subsequently buried, with a funeral and an obituary, and much grief and pain.

Santana stirs now, lies on her back, rests her head on the palms of her hands. For some strange reason, she remembers another visitor she had.

Rachel. Rachel Berry.

Rachel is a singer now, she remembers, an almost famous one at that, with a band and everything, doing all that punk-goth-emo thing, Quinn had told her. Rachel's father had been killed in an accident right after Santana's father had been murdered and Santana had disappeared. The new police chief is this guy named Figgins.

Quinn tells her Rachel, has an off-again, on-again relationship with that college boyfriend of hers, Finn Hudson, that same Hudson they'd seen her with before. Hudson had been training to be a cop but had dropped out at the last moment and is doing something else, security, last she heard. Quinn suspects he'd dropped out because the late chief disliked him and that stupid, goofy, clueless grin on his face wouldn't have probably made him go anywhere at the Police Department anyway, and will probably have been on traffic detail for the foreseeable and possibly unforeseeable future, so dropping out of police training had been best for all concerned. Santana doesn't care about Hudson, and only cares a little about Berry, but she welcomes the gossip in its naturalness and mundaneness, so different from what she had been through on that island.

Quinn herself is still in law school and is interning at this small law firm that she hopes to work in some day. Mr. Schuester had initially offered her a job as part of the legal team of Lopez Consolidated but she had declined. When Santana's eyebrows raise in question, Quinn just shrugs, says she isn't sure if corporate law is what she wants. She finds it dirty and murky, and has seen Cassandra July, the head of its legal team, in merciless action. She doesn't know if that's what she wants.

"Besides, since you've been gone, Lopez Consolidated's been through how many CEOs in the past few years? I don't know. No one seems to _stick_," Quinn says. "I mean, they've now named Mr. Schuester as acting CEO, and nothing's happened to him so that's good, but now that you're back, you're bound to take over, you're the rightful heir, you're technically chair and CEO now, once the paperwork's sorted, so, yeah."

Santana listens, doesn't respond to Quinn's news, only nods, too overwhelmed by the fact that the city she thought she would never see again, people she'd never see again, like Quinn, are right here, right now, standing in front of her.

Santana shifts on the floor now, remembers Mike. Mike has been given his own room. Santana had insisted on it, insisted Schuester and his team of accountant retroactively pay him for his services while he was employed with her the years they had been in the island, which Schuester had willingly done. He'd been given a room but she knows he may want some privacy so she thinks he could have the house over the garage if he wants. Schuester had insisted though that Santana be given a new bodyguard, Karofsky, since judging from Mike's state, he is no condition to continue to guard her.

"You're the sole heir of Lopez Consolidated," Schuester had told her, "We thought we lost you. We're not going to lose you again."

She hadn't wanted one. She feels she's more than capable of defending herself, but each time she sees the bruises and scars on her body, some not yet completely healed, she realizes Schuester may be right.

Karofsky is large, tall, muscled, very _white_ and does not speak, which suits Santana Lopez fine.

Santana remembers Quinn asking her, in the hospital, about the island. "What happened out there? In that island?" Her face is full of curiosity and concern.

In truth, most of it is a blur right now, each day having bled into the next. She remembers Coach Sue though and Mike, and avoiding those other people in the forest, and surprisingly surviving long enough for her and Mike to get off the island in a boat…

The boat…that was it. Coach Sue had rescued them…Set them in the boat and pushed it off the shore, saying she had some business to attend to…and they'd drifted for what seemed like forever, before the boat drifts to shore. She remembers drifting in and out of consciousness after - beach, sand, surf, sun, strong hands holding her, carrying her, a bed, a blanket, people in white, lights, harsh lights, voices, blurry figures and then this house finally.

Santana sighs.

All Santana wants to do now is sleep, but she cannot.

She remembers William Schuester instead, and how he'd visited her in the hospital as well. He had been divorced from wife Terry Schuester - yet another of those changes that Santana has missed - comes to inform her of the thousand and one things she needs to do as the heir apparent to Lopez Consolidated, of which William Schuester had been acting CEO and executor of the Lopez Estate whilst the post had been vacated in the wake of Santana Lopez's father's death and her own perceived death. He comes with a lot of papers and the same harried, confused, belligerent attitude, fully equipped with shirts and vests and a tweed jacket and enormous amounts of gel in his hair that Santana, despite herself, is glad to see.

As William Schuester goes on and on about Lopez Consolidated, giving Santana stock reports and other figures in clip files and folders and in flash drives and iPads with special programs and Excel sheets, Santana barely listens to Schuester's reports of mergers, acquisitions and partnerships, of Lopez Consolidated branching out into chemicals, pharmaceuticals, bioengineering and research development. She wasn't particularly interested when Schuester had boasted about a very particular partnership Lopez Consolidated is on the verge of making with GllaxoBayringer Inc., a company leading innovations in medicine and genetically modified products. Schuester had proudly boasted about it being like a very harmonious partnership, a fusion of sorts, combining the resources of Lopez Consolidated with the expertise, innovation and technology of GllaxoBayringer Inc. to could pave the way in medical research and solve world-hunger. He is particularly proud of a research project they have set up in South East Asia and South America that seems to be yielding promising results. He is even prouder of how, though the stocks initially plummeted a few points when the news of the death of Santana's father came out in the news, Schuester had managed to bring back confidence in Lopez Consolidated, with the end result that Lopez Consolidated is stronger than ever and is not showing any signs of slowing down. During his whole speech, Schuester speaks with musical metaphors, "harmony", "symphony", "tune", "melody", "mantra", "duet", "blues" "ballad", and so on, so that a typical conversation with him, such as what he'd had when Santana had come back to Casa Lopez, would be something like this, "We've created a musical fusion with GllaxoBayringer Inc., a duet that is in harmony, in tune with what the world needs, meeting the challenges of an increasing global market, that has an increasing demand for the kind of tune we sell…" Santana remembers her father saying Schuester had once aspired to be a composer or a musician of some sort, but he'd gotten his college or high school sweetheart (she forgot which) pregnant, and he'd had to give up dreams of a musical career to work as an accountant.

Quinn had patiently listened to him before she interrupts with a sarcastic, "I'm sure Santana is just dying to know what's happened to the company, but maybe we can save that for when Santana's a bit more…acclimated to urban life…"

As William Schuester considers this, sighs and begins to gather all the papers, folders, clip files and iPad, Quinn continues, "What Santana needs is a welcome home party." When William just looks at her, exasperated, Quinn says, "…After a sufficient amount of time of course…"

As Quinn Fabray and William Schuester begin to argue about what Santana should do next, Santana sighs, lies back down and closes her eyes. Somewhere in their argument, she hears Mr. Schuester say Cassandra July is busy with the paperwork and everything will be sorted soon. The rest of their conversation goes on without Santana ever actually hearing any of it.

Tia Maribel, the housekeeper of Casa Lopez, and her adopted son, Jake, had also come, all smiles and on the verge of tears.

"_Tia_…" Santana says softly.

A rush of memories come back. Much like Rachel, and Quinn and Mr. Schuester, _Tia _Maribel reminds Santana of a happier life, of a different life, and looking at Tia Maribel now, Santana feels a rush of tears threatening to spill from her eyes. Her father had hired _Tia _Maribel not only to manage the affairs of the house, but to take care of Santana. Santana had grown up with _Tia Maribel_. Her father had insisted Santana call her _Tia _Maribel. "Why be like those _gringos_ calling everyone by their first names?" he'd said and that was how Santana had grown up with the woman. She'd taken care of Santana, through her teething, and first words and baptism and first communion and first confession, as well as first dates and first heartbreaks, coming out, graduations and everything else. _Tia _Maribel now looks older, tireder, her long wisps of hair, always tied in a tight severe bun at the base of her neck now white and gray and black, the lines on her face revealing how old she has gotten. But she smiles upon seeing Santana, and her eyes light up, crinkle at the corners as she comes up to hug Santana. They have never been much for keeping with conventions. Her father had been a self-made man, and he kept telling her never to forget her rules, and never treat people, especially those less fortunate, like they were second-class citizens - something that Santana had been more than happy to oblige with. Her father despised hobnobbing with the rich and famous, most of whom had inherited their wealth and had thus never known a hard life or worked hard for whatever they get, so her father had sent Mr. Schuester in his stead or sometimes Santana and they would smile and wave for the cameras as if they were born to please society writers and photographers, although on the inside, all Santana had wanted to do was get on her Harley and ride down the highway and never come back.

_Tia _Maribel had held her as if she cannot believe she is actually here and she mutters in English and Spanish, "_Mija_, we'd thought we'd lost you forever, too. _Papa Dios_ has been kind to us." She had held Santana for a while before she pushes her back, looks at her and says, "Now, let me look at you." Her piercing gaze takes in Santana's thin, muscled, tanned frame, the scars that criss cross her arms, and the tips of small scars that peek out from her shirt. Beneath her shirt and pants, other scars, some fresh, some months or years old, sit undisturbed, each one reminding Santana of why she needed to survive and as _Tia _Maribel now looks at her, her eyes wander some place else, unable to stand _Tia _Maribel_'s_ scrutiny. But Tia Maribel seems to have decided on something, because she lets out a huff in exasperation, clucks her tongue and says, "You are so thin. What am I going to do with you? Here, have some _enchiladas_."

They have a brief argument about this, in which Santana protests against eating, insisting and claiming that she isn't really all that hungry. _Tia _Maribel only clucks her tongue impatiently, like a mother hen, ignoring Santana's protests and as soon as she gets home, she she shoves a tray of food in front of her. The tray has a couple of fried sunny side up eggs, bacon, sausage, a couple of toasts, pancakes, _enchiladas_, orange juice, slices of apple, brewed coffee. Santana stares at the food, not comprehending. She's lived a life of harsh survival in the jungles, trapping, shooting, and skinning animals for food, sometimes clubbing them to death and hearing and seeing them squeal for mercy, roasting them on a fire she has made by rubbing stones and sticks together, and drying what's left of the meat for the next days, catching fish with spears and make-shift wooden traps and sometimes, her hands. Sometimes when the months are lean and they cannot catch anything, they catch frogs, tree bugs, grasshoppers, worms, instead - a good source of protein Coach Sue and Mike had said, both of them looking on in amusement as she makes a face, pinches her nose and eats the roasted grasshoppers. Months of eating only frogs and insects have increased Santana's tolerance to creepy, crawly things and though she's dreamed of coming home to a feast such as this, she has gotten used to catching, killing and making her own food that staring at the food prepared specifically for her right now, makes her feel strange, out-of-place, confused, not knowing what to do.

_Tia _Maribel must have sensed her hesitation because she puts a hand on Santana's shoulder, making Santana look up. _Tia _Maribel smiles encouragingly and says, gently, "Maybe we should take it easy your first day back, okay?" When Santana nods, _Tia Maribel_ says, "Good. How's about I leave your breakfast here and let you rest? You just…ring me or text me or call for me or come down when you feel like it? You've had a long day, _mija_, I'm sure all you want to do is rest."

In truth, this…first day back in civilization - a word that at this point, has a very broad definition for Santana - all Santana wants to do is leave, to disappear, grab one of her Harleys and drive down the highway never to return.

For three years all she has had is Coach Sue and Mike in an island somewhere and she hasn't had the chance to make use of her vocal chords. All she can remember is the silence, words spoken only when necessary, and words exchanged carefully chosen, the rest of their conversation done in gestures, the movement of eyes, bodies doing the rest of the speaking when each one senses danger…or salvation.

Everyone is so nice. So fucking _nice_. But she feels hollow, detached, like all this is happening as if in a dream and she can't find it in herself to feel anything, to connect with anyone, or anything. She'd lost something in that island years ago, and it's not something that's coming back anytime soon.

She drifts off to sleep again.

It is morning when she next wakes up.

Santana had woken up to dreams of her father and Brittany, their images haunting her.

Santana gets up then, all sweaty and shivering, wincing at her muscles popping, wincing at the ache in her bones, at old bones that have been broken and healed, leaving only the ghost of a pain within. She goes to her massive walk-in-closet, finds it untouched, finds her clothes, an expensive range of luxury brands bought on a whim or out of boredom, or because she just got tired of her clothes then, she looks at the shelves of shoes stacked neatly in one corner, the dresser with the large mirror and the hidden safe behind it, where her father had secretly installed a safe for her to store her jewelry in. She looks at all this now and suddenly feels the urge to grab each and every one of them and throw them out the window. But she stops herself at the last minute, knowing that for the sake of keeping appearances, she needs to keep them, needs to make people believe she is still the same person she was before everything went to hell. She knows there will be appearances, interviews, press conferences, the occasional ribbon to be cut, the occasional insufferable party with rich brats to attend to, a charity gala to attend, board meetings with her father's board of directors. She knows this like she knows that for the sake of appearances, she must play her part, lead everyone to believe she is exactly the same as she was before. She has never cared for appearances. And more so now, with nothing left to lose. In truth she does not have it in her to care. She thinks she's lost that ability a long time ago. Detachment. This is her norm now. As much a way for her to survive, as it is a way for her to make it easier to detach herself when necessary. There is no need to form relationships, to form friendships. She is here for one, and only one reason: vengeance and vengeance alone.

But standing there in the middle of her closet, she doesn't know where to start, or even how. Having been on the island for three years had given her a long time to think about planning, but where to even begin? _Dia De Los Muertos_ seems like a long time ago…and though in waking she can barely recall her father or Brittany anymore, they still come to her dreams, every night, asking her to avenge them and it is the only thing that keeps her alive now, keeps her going.

As she stands there, feeling the minutes tick by, feeling the urgency press around her, she realizes that she needs to think.

She realizes that she needs to go out for a ride.

* * *

She doesn't know how long she runs through the streets of Cosmopolis.

She doesn't know where to go. She just knows she needs to air, and some time to think. Casa Lopez feels constricting, it feels suffocating. She needs to get away from it all.

She doesn't know how it happens but she finds herself at Cosmopolis Memorial, and she's walking down rows and rows of tombstones and finds herself standing in front of her father's grave. Beside it is a spot where her tombstone still stands. No one has thought to remove it yet. She kneels down, runs her hand on her name engraved on it, under which is the year she was born, 1994, and the year she died, and the words, "Loving daughter. You will always be missed." It feels strange to see her tombstone, to see her name etched there.

Beside her tombstone, she can see that of Brittany. Someone had thoughtfully decided Brittany's tombstone needed to be with hers. She moves to Brittany's tombstone, kneels before it, runs fingers through the name and finds tears silently rolling down her cheeks.

"I miss you baby," she whispers to the tombstone before she leans her forehead on it.

Up above the skies begins to darken. A breeze blows through her long, dark locks. She doesn't move, lets the peace and quiet go through her. She feels the cold slab of marble against her forehead. She shivers from the cold, but refuses to get up.

As she kneels there, she renews her vow to avenge her father and her girlfriend's death.

She nods once before she gets up and walks away, letting the mist swallow her form into the night and the darkness.

* * *

Rachel Berry spots Santana making her way through the rows of tombstones at Cosmopolis Memorial.

She's just visited her father, laid flowers on his grave and has pulled her coat closer around herself, making her own way out of the park when she sees Santana.

She doesn't even want to talk to Santana, is in no mood to talk to someone she's slept with and had vague feelings for when they'd first hooked up in college. If there's one thing she's learned about rich kids like Santana, it's that the world is their oyster, and ordinary people their playthings. Santana got easily distracted, easily bored, a disease most rich, privileged people have, and she had the tongue and the judgmental eyes to go with it as well. And of course, her friends had warned her about hooking up with Santana, but she had been foolish and a little tipsy and she'd fallen for those dark eyes and full lips, sweet words whispered, fingers worshipping her body, embraces and kisses that made Rachel Berry feel like Santana could give her the world if she wanted to. But that illusion ended as the night ended and Rachel Berry had woken up to her father by the door and a groggy Santana looking at her as if she didn't even know or care who she was. She hadn't called Rachel or returned her phone calls after. Rachel had been momentarily distraught before her father and her friends had pointed out that there was no future with Santana Lopez anyway and that she should move on.

And she had.

But she sees her now and she feels her heart leaping to her throat in excitement and she feels temporarily breathless, like someone's grabbed her chest and is squeezing the life out of her - a feeling she only ever has, and _only_ ever has, with Santana Lopez. It's the same feeling she's had when she first saw her at a party back in college, and it's the same feeling she has now.

She decides to leave before Santana can stop her, but Santana is right there, in front of her, before she can turn and walk away and she finds herself staring up at Santana's dark eyes.

Rachel doesn't know what to say.

She goes for the obvious, just nods and sort of mutters a "Hey."

She doesn't expect Santana to greet her back, or even respond, so she makes to move past her, but Santana stops in front of her, says, "Hey", back.

Rachel doesn't know what to say to that, so she nods and waves. But before she can walk away, she hears Santana say, "I'm sorry about…your father…"

Rachel stops, turns, feels the sting of it, the reminder that both her fathers, and her mother, were all gone, that she was really and truly an orphan.

"Thank you," she says softly, not knowing what else to add.

When Santana only nods, Rachel says, "I'm…sorry about your father, too…and…and Brittany…she was one of my closest friends…I'm…I'm just sorry for your loss…"

Santana nods, and Rachel sees her visibly swallow, sees her eyes fill with tears and Rachel panics, realizing she's reminded Santana of a very recent pain.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to…" Rachel says now, taking a step forward. When Santana only shakes her head, Rachel grabs her bag and rummages through it, pulling out a small box of tissues for Santana.

"Thank you," Santana says. Before Rachel can leave, Santana is saying, "Do you want to have coffee or something?"

* * *

And so it was that Rachel and Santana find themselves in a coffee shop as heavy rain fell outside the building. It started raining when they got into Santana's limo and it had not abated as they stopped at the nearest coffee shop they could find.

Santana is surprised it isn't nearly as awkward as she expected it to be.

Santana's eyes drift to Rachel's shoulders, down to her neck, her arms, her body, before her eyes drift back up to Rachel's face, to those eyes that she once woke up to, and as she stares at Rachel, she realizes that Rachel seems more beautiful now. She has discarded her knit sweaters, her headbands, her school girl blouses, her school girl skirts, in favor of a dress that plunge enough to reveal a cleavage, and a skirt that ends just above her knees. The slow blush continues to creep up Rachel's neck, and on to her face but Santana doesn't know how to look away. It's surprising that three years of just Mike Chang and Coach Sue and the insects and wild animals of the island, she would actually be glad to see another face, and not that just any face, but this face, even though that face is the face of someone she'd actually seduced into sleeping with her and then conveniently forgot to call after. Is she married? Santana wonders. Does she have a boyfriend? She'd started dating someone else when they were in college. Some freak training to be a cop, an older guy with a goofy, puppy dog look around him that, for some strange reason, irritated Santana. What was his name? Nelson? Wilson? No, she'd remembered it reminded her of a river or a bay, somewhere. Chesapeake? Mississippi? Missouri? Colorado? No, something simple. New York. Then she remembers. Hudson. Like the Hudson River. He had a ridiculous, unimaginative first name that reminded her of fish somehow. Gills? Gill Hudson? Scales? Flipper?

And then the name comes to her.

Finn Hudson. The name comes to her then. Of course. When Rachel turns to look at him and turns back to Santana without a flicker of interest in her eyes, Santana realizes they are no longer together. Judging from the disinterest or feigned disinterest in Rachel's eyes, they must have separated a few years back. Rachel starts to fidget with the hem of her skirt, a nervous habit she told Santana she had, when she was in awkward situations or equally intense situations. Santana doesn't know which one Rachel feels nervous about, but seeing Rachel nervously fidgeting with the hem of her suit comforts Santana with its bit of normalcy. When Rachel Berry catches Santana Lopez staring, Santana averts her gaze, out of embarrassment and continues to do so as people and conversation and laughter and music and the clinking of bottles and glasses drift in and out backstage.

Rachel Berry - who, in Santana's mind, is a vague memory, a vague face, from a long-forgotten, more innocent, more carefree past, in which the biggest problem Santana ever worried about was escaping the wrath of irate fathers who have caught their daughters in very compromising situations with rich heiresses like Santana Lopez.

Now Rachel is saying, "…I guess you're okay. They told me you were sick when they find you, running fever… and I can't imagine what you've been through but…you're okay now and…"

There's something in the way Rachel says it that makes Santana flare with irritation. She's never wanted anyone's pity, or sympathy, never wanted it now, and the look of pity on Rachel's face, evident in those deep, dark brown eyes, irks Santana so much the smile completely disappears from her face, her eyes grow cold and she looks coldly at Rachel and says, "No, you cannot imagine what I've been through…"

"I'm…I'm sorry…I didn't mean…I…It must have been hard and…"

"God, Rachel, don't you ever shut up?" Santana says now, annoyed as she tries to get up.

"I'm sorry," Rachel says now.

Santana struggles not to make a face, tries to push down the irritation, the impatience - Coach Sue had taught her that nostalgia, pity, emotions, these are impediments to achieving one's goal and right now, Rachel Berry is taking her precious minutes away from what she has dreamed of doing that whole time she was on the island. But Rachel looks at her like she's just kicked Rachel's puppy and Santana feels a flare of irritation anew, because of course now she has to make Rachel feel better. She feels slightly guilty - Rachel, Quinn, they are the first human beings outside of Coach Sue and Mike Chang, that she has come into contact with after three years on the island.

"I'm sorry," she struggles to say now, feeling her voice sound hollow and empty as she says it. "I've…I've been stuck in an island with a long time…my social skills need a bit of work," she says.

Rachel smiles. "It's…it's okay. I…" Rachel stops, her eyebrows knitting, struggling about what to say next. She chooses her next words carefully. "I'm…I'm sorry about…Brittany. She was a good friend…I…" She stops again, feeling her eyes fill with tears. Santana swallows, feeling uncomfortable. "I'm sorry about your father, too. He was a good man. He'd been there when my mother died."

They talk some more before Santana realizes it is time to go.

Santana comes back to the house and sleeps much better.

* * *

A party.

That's what Quinn's big plan is.

A big welcome home party for Santana Lopez at one of the empty Lopez warehouses.

She manages not to roll her eyes at how ridiculous and totally unnecessary that is.

She doesn't want it, doesn't need it, feels it to be a waste of time. But there is a look on Quinn's face, a pleading look, and Santana realizes the party isn't necessarily just for her, it's for everyone else who wants to see her.

She grudgingly allows the party and she sees a grin on Quinn's face such as she has never seen before.

As Quinn organizes the party, Santana gets reacquainted with her old life, with Lopez Consolidated, with her new tasks, her duties and responsibilities as heir and CEO, visiting buildings, attending meetings with the Board of Trustees, with the directors and employees of each division of Lopez Consolidated, with Lopez Consolidated's partners, chief of which is Carl Howell of GllaxoBayringer Inc., press conferences, meetings with the Police Chief, interviews, meetings with lawyers and what-not. She's never liked this part of her father's legacy when he was alive and she certainly doesn't care for it now, but for lack of something better to do, she acquiesces.

She hated it as much as she hated parties, but there is one good thing that comes out of it:

The abandoned warehouse Quinn is holding the party in had a basement. She had stumbled onto a secret door at the back of the warehouse that gave way to a flight of stairs leading down, which revealed a massive space where she can store information, materials, weapons, if need be. She has the money from Coach Sue and her own money, and thanks to the joys of online shopping, she's managed to order some weapons, crates of which she's stored under the warehouse. The joys of owning a company means that she has access to resources other people could only dream of. She bought weapons, a state-of-the-art computer system that she's been told is excellent. It is the computer that she uses now to do some research about Dustin Goolsby. She doesn't see much on the guy, on the internet, and thinks maybe she needs that IT guy, Sam Evans, to help her with some research.

When things get too much at home, or at work, where she now officially _is_ the CEO, with Schuester as her adviser, she escapes to the warehouse, does pull-ups, push-ups, sit-ups, runs on the treadmill, practices shooting arrows whilst throwing tennis balls up in the air, she has tried to shoot guns, but guns attract attention. She has lined the walls and ceilings of the basement with sound proof material but she doesn't want anyone to hear what she is doing and she's never been comfortable with guns, so she practices with arrows, knives. She sets up a wooden doll, where she practices what Mike and Coach Sue has taught her. She doesn't know what else to do, where to start, but continuing the routine she had when she was on the island helps her, calms her, gives her release for pent-up tension, stress, rage.

The other good thing about being CEO and sole heir of Lopez Consolidated, Inc. is her unlimited access to resources of the company, chief of which are its human resources, which Santana is finding is very useful.

Santana had gone to the I.T. Department once to ask the help of one of its I.T. personnel - Sam Evans, a tall, muscled, bespectacled blonde guy with frog lips listening to something on his big headphones as he typed on his computer.

When he sees Santana he gets up and says hello, but before he could say anything else, Santana Lopez says, "I've got a job for you."

Sam Evans cocks his head, smiles. "What is it?"

Santana shrugs as casually as she can. "Just some research on some guy."

"Oooh, crushing on some guy?" Sam Evans asks. When Santana just glares at him, Sam Evans clears his throat and says, "Sorry. Go on."

"Um, I've been thinking about expanding, and there's this company I'm thinking of acquiring, somewhere in South America, but…I want to do a background check on the guy making the transaction. Dustin Goolsby. You know him?" Santana asks, hoping her voice doesn't betray any emotion.

"Dustin Goolsby," Sam Evans says, drawing out the names in his tongue, as if trying to see the feel of it, trying to remember if he's heard the name before. After several seconds, he shakes his head and says, "Nope, doesn't ring a bell. But I could totally check him out for you." He whips out his iPad that Santana didn't know he had with him, stored away in his bag. Santana quickly speaks.

"Um…it's kind of private," Santana says now. "I'd rather you not do your…researching in public. Lest we get some curious, prying eyes seeing what you're doing and jeopardizing our plans for the company."

Sam Evans thinks about this before he nods and says, "You're right. What was I thinking? Okay, gimme some time, and your number and I'll call you as soon as I get any info on the guy. That okay?"

Santana nods and gives him a number he could call in case he does get some information on Dustin Goolsby.

* * *

A tall, pale young man in his thirties, with brownish wavy hair, a round face, a dark, expensive Armani suit, polished black Kenneth Cole shoes wait by the docks with a suitcase and waits impassively, unmoving, as a limo stops beside him and a door opens. He gets into the limo without saying anything.

An older man, handsome, with dark wavy hair and a stubble on his chin, in an equally expensive, immaculately pressed suit patiently waits for him inside the limo, offers him a glass of Martini. When the younger man shakes his head no in refusal, the man nods in approval and without further ado says, "The girl is still alive."

"Yes."

"Does she suspect anything?"

"No."

"I want her dead. _Now_."

"Yes."

"And I want her to _stay_ dead this time."

The younger man's Adam's apple visibly goes up and down as the man swallows nervously. The older man tilts his head, raises an eyebrow in amusement, watching the younger man squirm.

Finally, the younger man says, "Yes."

* * *

On the day of the party, the party is in full swing when Santana arrives, driven over by Karofsky, who, as always is quiet and inscrutable, trailing after her in the party as she talks to friends and acquaintances alike. William Schuester is at the party, vest and shirt and gelled hair recognizable in the crowd. With him is Cassandra July in a nice, tight, evening dress. She stands straight-backed, no-nonsense, and Quinn jokes that her face is pulled so tight over her skull her cheekbones are cutting a hole through her cheeks, and it makes Santana laugh. July must sense that she is being talked about because she glares at Quinn and Santana, like only a family and company lawyer who'd seen both girls grow into women, could.

Minutes later, GllaxoBayringer Inc.'s golden boy, CEO Carl Howell, waltzes in confidently with a tall blonde woman in a tight-fitting dress on his arm, her face, according to Quinn, rivaling that of Cassandra July. Santana smirks. She isn't familiar with Carl Howell, but she knows him enough to be some kind of brilliant guy who'd turned the struggling company back to its feet. People know him as ruthless in the way he runs the company, having ruthlessly downsized, outsourced, cut costs and spending, to help GllaxoBayringer Inc. be the company it is now. He steps up now to shake Santana Lopez's hands with a faux French gesture and an even more painful faux French word of greeting that makes Santana want to punch the smirk out of his face. But she holds her ground and politely smiles, like she has been taught and tries not to lose her temper.

There are some other people she barely remembers, from her father's company, from school. She's already met - Sam Evans, who was now regaling people with his silly Sean Connery and James Earl Jones impersonations, Artie "Robot Legs" Abrams, who is wearing titanium alloy legs and can't seem to resist showing it to everyone, whether they want to see it or not and works in Lopez Consolidated's Research and Development, Rachel's gay best friend Kurt "Porcelain" Hummel and boyfriend Blaine "Warbler" Anderson. She's met Sam Evans and Artie Abrams before, as Mr. Schuester gave her the grand tour of Lopez Consolidated and its departments and introduced key employees to her. Kurt and Blaine she doesn't remember so much. There's a girl that Quinn introduces to Santana, a girl named Dani, and at first, Santana doesn't remember her, but when Quinn introduces her and adds "starving artist" and "playing on the streets of Cosmopolis during the day, and sings in the clubs at night", Santana suddenly remembers her. They'd hooked up one night. Santana had liked her voice, and her body, but apparently, hadn't liked her enough to call her. From the look on her face, Santana knows the girl feels just as awkward as she does, and maybe a bit disappointed Santana never called her. There's a guy, tall and muscular, skin bronzed, head bald but for a tuft of ridiculous hair in front, who, Quinn introduces as Detective Noah Puckerman.

"Chief Figgins sends his regards," Puckerman says. "And please call me Puck," he says with a wide, winning grin on his face and a disarming charm that would have worked on Santana had she been younger and _straight_.

Quinn and other girls and women seem charmed by Puckerman though as he chats them up with talk of police work, criminals, drug wars and offers to show them the scars he's gotten on the field. Santana wants to roll her eyes at him, but he turns and winks at Santana in delighted amusement at all the girls' listening with rapt attention to his stories that it makes Santana grin back. She doesn't know the guy, but he seems nice.

She also meets Quentin Fabray, Quinn's father, who nods once at her, tells her he is glad to see her again and moves off to chat with Carl Howell. Johann Smyth also comes, smiling and nodding at Santana before he moves off.

She sees Tia Maribel's son, Jake, with some of his high school friends. She had been introduced to them, a haze of faces that all looked the same - Joe Larsen with the unwashed hippie dreads and Jesus sandals, Ryder Flynn with his blonde, boy band looks, the girls, Kitty and Marley Rose, both equally as bland as the other girls, Penny and Bree. Jake and Ryder both seem smitten by Marley Rose, but Marley Rose seems oblivious, as she looks at Kitty with what Santana can swear are adoring eyes. When later, the place dims and lights and music start to throb inside the place, she spies Marley Rose slip her fingers into Kitty's hand, Santana smirks. High school kids nowadays, she says, shaking her head.

Meanwhile, Jake doesn't seem to notice as he proudly says they're all in a band, and they all met at Glee Club and they're not that good yet, but Quinn says they could play a set before Illuminati (which Santana learns later is the name of Rachel's band) so here they are. Santana looks at them and nods. She recognizes Sebastian Smyth, the meerkat-looking young man who is the offspring of Johann Smyth who pretentiously pronounces "either" and "neither" and some other words, in a different way. He is friends with the others and Santana spies some a couple of small, clear plastic bags being passed to Jake. Curious, she just looks at Jake and Jake grins and offers a palm full of white pills.

"You want some?" Jake asks her now. "'D''s supposed to be, like, the bomb or something. It's better than Black Forest. I mean, dude, it takes out all that paranoia from all those other stuff and like, just gives you a good high."

Santana raises an eyebrow and shakes her head. She is no stranger to party drugs and alcohol, but finds that the thought of even getting near both reprehensible. She settles for saying, "Uh, I don't think so. And seriously? 'The bomb'? You're a dork." When Jake just shrugs and pops a couple into his mouth and downs it all down with a swig of beer, Santana stares at him and says, "Uh, aren't you a bit young for all that stuff? And last time I checked all that stuff you're doing is illegal."

Jake just rolls his eyes. "Dude, you're not my mom. So bite me. Or whatever."

When Santana just glares at him, Jake just smirks and joins the others.

* * *

Carl Howell walks out of the party and into the limo waiting outside, settling comfortably on the plush seat as he gives his driver the order to drive him to the docks.

He thinks about the boy and thinks he's okay, he decides, a bit green, a bit wet behind the ears, a bit naïve, a bit stupid, like some football jocks who've been hit on the head one too many times are wont to be, but his high school football training and his police training has ensured him that the young man will follow whatever orders are given to him. Carl Howell needed people like him. As CEO of GllaxoBayringer Inc., one of America's Fortune 500 companies, he didn't get to where he is now by playing fair, or following the rules, or thinking about such things as ethics, integrity or corporate responsibility. That was for pussies. People who played in the big leagues played hardball, and he intended to be in the game for a long time.

He wanted to get Lopez Consolidated, Inc. under his belt. It was a great company to be a partner with, and the projects, the plans, the products they could create, the money they could bring in as one formidable team made Carl's loins ache with longing.

He didn't know about this Lopez girl - she seems weak somehow. How she survives a massacre in drug-ridden Mexico is beyond him. He had meant to tell the young man something, but he'd forgotten, but now it comes back to him. He grabs his phone and dials it.

As soon as the other man answers, he says, "Yeah, the pilot? The guy who flew the chartered plane? Is he dead? If he's not, I want him dead. Like yesterday. Make sure nothing connects us to that day. Or that girl."

He nods in satisfaction when the voice on the other end says yes. Now if only he'd stop seeing that annoying singer with the bulbous nose and the annoying high-pitched voice, Carl Howell would be content.

He smirks as he tosses the phone on the sofa.

He looks out of the limo and realizes the limo is slowing down, has arrived at the destination, the docks, now completely deserted, only ships and large crates in attendance. The water is calm, the lights of Cosmopolis reflected on the water. He could hear the distant foghorn. He checks his watch, realizes he is early. This is good. He likes being early.

As he refills his glass from the limo liquor cabinet, his phone buzzes and he checks and sees that he has messages from Bryan Ryan, the vice president of GllaxoBayringer Inc. and Sandy Ryerson, chief of medical research.

Before he could answer the first text from Bryan Ryan, the other side of the limo suddenly opens and Bryan Ryan comes in in a nervous huff. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" Bryan Ryan demands of Carl Howell. "You're going to get us into trouble."

"The hell you talking about?" Carl Howell says impassively, leaning back on the plush seat as he plays with his glass of martini.

"What do you mean what the hell am I talking about?"

Bryan Ryan says, "I mean Sandy Ryerson called me and said that shit ain't nearly ready for public distribution!"

"The fuck you talking about?"

"I mean, Sandy just told me that shit has lead and mercury and formaldelhyde and MSG and other stuff and what the hell are we doing with stuff that's causing heart attacks and palpitations and seizures and god-knows-what?" Bryan Ryan demands. "And have you seen that video from those people? They're saying we've developed GMOs that have created new bacteria and cause cancer and whatever?" He pulls out a video to show the offending video. "I mean, they _broke_ into our lab and took videos!"

Carl Howell says, "You're an idiot. You're a fucking idiot, you know that?"

"And what's this about dipping into some kind of party drug and using company money for that?"

"Lies, all lies," Howell says. "Also, no one can prove that."

"But Goolsby…"

"Relax. Goolsby's not a prob anymore."

"But…"

"Shut the fuck up," Carl Howell says. "Our clients are here. Get it together, man. And please don't throw up in the limo again. I just got it cleaned."

Bryan Ryan glares at him before he leans back and looks out the window at about the same time Carl Howell does.

They both watch as both limos roll to a stop near their own limo.

Quentin Fabray and Johann Smyth enter the limo. The tall frame of Quentin Fabray come out of one, and Johann Smyth on the other.

"Shut up and let me do the talking," Carl Howell says as he reaches for the door and opens it.

Bryan Ryan nods once and follows him out.

Carl Howell smirks as he gets out. He loves his job.

He's having a good day. Maybe he'll visit Berkeley later for a quickie on her couch. He needs the release.

And this…well, this was going to make him fucking rich.

* * *

A few minutes into the party Santana already feels bored.

As she sits on her chair, by one of the tables, a few meters away from the stage, where a DJ is playing some house music, Santana starts to get restless, is itching to leave the hall, finds the lights too bright and glaring, the women, in their skimpy outfits and short skirts and stilettos and the men, in their open-necked shirts and jeans and Kenneth Cole shoes, with their smiles and their trust funds and their pretense at caring that this party mattered when really it was all bullshit, looking all plastic and fake and fucking _annoying_ annoyed her.

All she can think of is leaving this party, going down to the basement, where she's set up some makeshift office, her headquarters as it were.

For some strange reason she suddenly finds herself near Sam Evans, who is holding a beer and is rocking on the balls of his feet, nervous and excited at the same time. When Santana looks at him, Sam Evans grins and says, "I'm a big fan of Illuminati."

Santana gives him a one-sided smile, wondering what he would say, as he stood there enumerating the virtues of Rachel Berry, her singing prowess and that of her band, if he found out that Santana Lopez had once slept with the same Rachel Berry. He would probably die, she thinks with a smirk.

Before he leaves, Santana says, "Oh, before I forget, can you take a look at this?" She hands him a small piece of plastic with a few white pills in it.

Sam Evan's eyes grow wide. "That's…that's…"

Santana smiles a small, grim smile. "I don't know what it is, but can you find out for me, please? As soon as you get anything, let me know. And don't let Mr. Schue and the others find out what you've been doing. I kind of want this hush-hush."

Sam Evans nods with a serious look on his face, replaced after with an intent look as he casually pockets the plastic bag in his back pocket and he stares at his iPad, fingers gliding, looking for something.

Right now, the lights grow dimmer and the spotlight turns to the stage and there is a woman standing there, in a short, short, tight dress, long hair, and dark make-up, and she nods to the band and the keyboardist starts to play the first strains of "My Immortal" and then she steps up to the mike and starts to sing as well and Santana stares up at about the same time the singer looks down and their eyes meet.

She remembers those eyes. They are a pair of deep dark, brown eyes staring deep into her own dark ones, familiar chocolate brown eyes she's looked deep into a few times before, eyes that sought love and assurance once, in her own eyes, but only found indifference there. The eyes look at her before they leave her, the singer's gaze drifting through the crowd.

Quinn comes up now and smiles uncertainly at Santana.

"Hey, San," the woman says, smiling uncertainly at Santana.

Santana looks at her, blinks and tries to smile.

"Hey. Great party," Santana says now.

Quinn rolls her eyes. "Try to sound excited when you say that. This is what I could come up with on a meager budget. Sue me."

Despite herself, Santana laughs. "Fine."

Then, as the singer's voice lifts to a crescendo, the stage explodes in lights, guitar riffs and smoke and Santana is taken to a different time, when she'd almost died in the island.

"…Santana…?"

A voice breaks through her thoughts and she looks to the sound, and it is Quinn, looking at her, all worried and concerned.

"…Are you okay?" Quinn asks now, trying not to look worried as she stares at Santana.

Santana doesn't miss the look on her face though, and Santana realizes Quinn must have been talking for quite some time now.

Santana finds she isn't used to it, but she says, "I'm okay."

Quinn nods.

Santana listens to the singer and she says, "Rachel's not bad. She's gotten good."

"Yeah. She's as annoying now as she was when we were in college but she's cool," Quinn says. "Do you want to say hi to her or something?"

Santana looks up again and sees Rachel looking at her.

Santana shrugs, and says, "Why not?"

* * *

Quinn is as good as her word.

Minutes after Rachel is finished with her set, Quinn is dragging Santana backstage, where Rachel is relaxing with her band, a bottle of cold beer in her hand.

When Quinn leaves the two and Rachel tries to chat with Santana, Santana notices how awkward, nervous and self-conscious Rachel seems. Rachel's hands are nervous as, one hand plays with the beer bottle which she regularly takes a swig from, and which is promptly replaced with a fresh, full one by one of her bandmates, whilst the other hand picks at imaginary lint on her short skirt, which she now seems to realize is too short, but which Santana can't help but look at, staring at the smooth thighs that are now crossed, ending in boots. An errant thought passes through Santana - what she would give to have her hand travelling up Rachel's skirt. She only realizes what she is thinking when she sees Rachel blush red.

Then a guy, a tall, pale, muscular guy in an expensive Armani suit and ridiculous shades awkwardly comes up to say hi to Rachel and she doesn't miss the irritated look on Rachel's face. She guesses it is Finn Hudson. Judging from Rachel's annoyed look at being rudely interrupted, Santana guesses they are no longer an item.

"You were good out there," Santana says, for lack of something better to say.

Rachel sighs, shrugs, "I'm really not that good yet…"

"Wow, whatever happened to…" and here Santana shifts her voice, makes it higher as she says, with a smirk, unable to help herself, " 'So tell me, San, am I brilliant? Or extraordinary?'"

Rachel looks up, a faint smile on her face. "Good to know you haven't changed," Rachel comments now.

"Good to know you don't dress like a dork anymore," Santana says, smiling, before she can stop herself. She stops, looks at Rachel and mutters, "Sorry."

Rachel stops, stares at her and says, after a beat, "I guess you're still sick." She casually puts her hand on Santana's forehead and says, "Yes, you're a little warm. Guess you're still running a fever."

Santana only smiles, feeling conscious of the warmth of Rachel's hand on her forehead. Rachel's nearness gives Santana a whiff of something fragrant, gardens, freshness, something fruity, something deep, rich, feminine. Santana has the urge to reach out, touch Rachel's hand, her face, touch the feel of her skin beneath her own, touch the warmth, maybe that will set fire to something that has lain cold and unfeeling inside her since that day of loss and death.

But then a flash of an image, blonde hair and blue eyes, pass through her mind's eye and the smile fades. She knits her eyebrows now as Rachel clears her throat.

Quinn chooses this time to come back, to Santana's relief, effectively ending the awkward small talk she and Rachel have been having.

It doesn't stop Santana and Rachel from reacquainting themselves a few hours later, though, in Rachel's apartment.

* * *

Santana hadn't expected anything to happen between her and Rachel.

But as the party wore on, and the music became less noisy, and the lights died down, and the crowd dwindled, so that only a few people, Quinn, Santana, Rachel, a few others, Karofsky, were left, Santana and Rachel were able to chat a bit more.

It had started with Rachel looking at her and asking her, in all earnest, "How are you _really?_" that sets off a conversation where Santana expresses her confusion, her anxiety, her feeling of being lost, of feeling like she doesn't belong anywhere, not here, not back in the island, and Rachel listens so intently, Santana feels, for the first time, like someone actually understands her.

It had been getting late and Santana had offered to give Rachel a ride. Karofsky had brought the limo and it had been more than spacious. Rachel had had a few to drink, and Santana, despite herself, had also consumed some alcohol.

They both slide into the limo, Santana first, then Rachel. Santana had her arms at the back of the plush seat and Rachel had sat beside her.

Santana's body feels nothing but intoxicated, aching delight at the night and Rachel's smooth white skin. Rachel had looked beautiful, her top sliding wonderfully over her chest, over which she can see the delicious white flesh where the top of her dress blouse is.

Santana's hand had casually reached for Rachel's shoulder and ran the fingers of her right hand down Rachel's side, from beside her breast to her hip. Rachel had continued to talk about insignificant things, her voice skimming past Santana with the same dreamlike and unexpected vividness as the images floating across the window. She had extremely fine features and Santana remembers that she looked exquisite. Rachel had put the index and middle finger of her left hand on Santana's thigh, drawing doodles. Santana couldn't quite sustain interest in what she is saying, but she remembers her heart and mind absolutely filled by Rachel herself.

Rachel puts her right leg over her left, slips out of her shoes and Santana leans over and runs her fingers on Rachel's slender ankle. She runs her hand up along Rachel's leg, and slides her hand around and over her knee and up along the outside of her thigh. Her fingers run up the front of her thigh, under the skirt, until it reached her hip.

With her other hand she reaches up and brushes the hair away from her neck. She leans over and kisses Rachel behind her ear. Rachel's shoulder pulls up and she leans on Santana, slightly twists around as Santana leans over and kisses her on the mouth, their tongues twisting over each other, her hands pulling Santana towards her. Santana is filled with the delicious feeling of tasting Rachel, as her fingers run up and down Rachel's sides, and move to press into Rachel's breasts, feeling her heart banging against Santana's hand. As she kisses Rachel on the mouth, her neck, and her eyes, her hand slides at the back of her dress, and in one swift motion, unzips it, pulls her dress down, reaches for Rachel's bra, and unhooks it, sliding it down Rachel's shoulders. She can feel the swollen nipple under her fingers, her palm. As she runs both hands all over Rachel's torso, she leans forward and kisses the hard nipples as Rachel arches her back, pushing her breasts forward to her. Santana remembers thinking how perfect Rachel's breasts are.

Rachel starts to unbutton Santana's silk shirt, fingers traveling over and unhooking Santana's bra. As her fingers come around to the small of Santana's back, Rachel leans over and kisses Santana on her breasts. Santana groans in response and with her body pushes Rachel back, kissing her nipples as she runs one hand across the smooth flesh of Rachel's belly and slide it on the waistband Rachel's underwear. Rachel sucks in her breath as Santana's fingertips run onto the heat of her skin beneath the underwear. Santana pushes her fingers gently down and feels Rachel's hips tilt forward. Rachel deftly slides on top of Santana, leaning forward, putting her arms around Santana and her head on Santana's shoulder. Santana pulls her tighter toward herself, and Rachel pulls Santana's shirt down her shoulders, runs a hand on Santana's shoulder before she leans over and kisses her, and she tilts her head to meet Santana's lips in a deep kiss. Santana shifts so that she can fully hold Rachel with one hand, while her other hand is caressing the heat between Rachel's legs. She feels Rachel's naked breasts against her skin. As they kiss, Santana pushes her fingers hard between her legs, enjoying the rather delicious sensation of being inside Rachel. Rachel, meanwhile, gently lowers her head and delicately kisses Santana, before her lips and hands move all over Santana's body, lips and tongue caressing her and a new swell of bliss mingled easily with anxiety and shame flowers in Santana. Santana leans over, moves to the side, twists a little so that she can push Rachel on the seat, running her hands over her body, from her hips up over her breasts. Santana kisses her and as she pushes her tongue gently into her mouth, she continues to push herself inside Rachel and Rachel pushes back with her hips, grinding into her as she kisses Santana with wanton abandon, all the while softly moaning and gasping in pleasure as she looks steadily in Santana's eyes and it's all Santana can do to look away.

They don't realize when the limo stops right in front of Rachel's apartment, and it takes them a good few minutes before they both realize the limo has come to a full stop. They don't notice how awkward their position is until they realize the ache they're feeling is not from the sex but from their crooked position on the limo seat. But Santana kisses Rachel and caresses her and Rachel smiles and kisses her back as they both pull their clothing together, fastened buttons and helped each other tuck clothes into place and smooth hair back into place before they get out of the limo, after which Rachel asks Santana if she wants to have some coffee with her before she goes home. Santana smiles and says, "Sure. Why not?"

It's not the first time Santana comes up for coffee at Rachel's apartment.

* * *

It's not a relationship. Both know it.

Sex is not dating after all, Santana had once told her.

Rachel is not the Rachel of college. She isn't looking for a relationship. She tells Santana as much. Santana is the same. They don't expect to get married after this. Or fall in love. It doesn't work that way. But as Rachel runs a finger over Santana's skin, over her scars, and kisses each one, fingers pressing against the muscles on Santana's arms, her flat, taut stomach and equally taut back and Santana runs fingers on Rachel's own scars, kissing them in turn, both not asking questions, or offering explanations, Santana realizes she needs this, needs her, needs anyone really, in order to feel something, anything. She needs a warm body beside her, beneath her and when she plunges deep inside Rachel, she realizes this is what she has needed all along, to be on Rachel's bed, with her between Rachel's legs, Rachel's arms and legs wrapped around her, Rachel's lips buried in Santana's neck, moans of pleasure coming from Rachel's throat, as her fingers thrust deeper and deeper inside Rachel, pushing and pulling inside her as Rachel matches Santana's movements with the desperate thrusts of her hips and thigh. When Rachel comes, pulling Santana in deep as she does so, arching her back up and off the bed with a gasp, and Santana comes after her, they collapse into the bed, heaving and out of breath, and Rachel smiles and kisses her and holds her and she lets her and they hold each other and drift off into sleep.

When she wakes up, body tangled with Rachel's limbs and sheets, she moves to the floor, and goes to sleep.

She wakes up again in the middle of the night to find that Rachel had moved to the floor, her arms around her, a sheet over them. Rachel sleepily kisses her on the shoulder, runs her hand on Santana's stomach and sleeps. Santana holds her hand and thinks maybe this is enough for the night.

As Santana drops off to sleep, she realizes that it is _not_ enough.

The feeling is fleeting.

And is gone as her eyes close.

* * *

She is lying on her back, on the dirt, on the ground, and that sharp rocks are pressing against her back, her arms, her legs. She can feel something else press against her body, and she realizes it is the roots of a tree. She feels something cold beneath her and she realizes she is lying on a small stream and water is slowly seeping through her clothes. She glances down, realizes she is wearing something old, something worn, army fatigues that used to be a brighter, darker green, now faded and tattered, and a faded green tee shirt, the neck torn, the sleeves torn off, revealing thin, muscled, bronzed arms that end in veined hands that are quick and nimble. As she scrambles to her feet, briefly brushing off the dirt from her clothes, she looks around with sharp, suspicious eyes. She doesn't know why but she seems to be moving slowly, like her body is made of lead, like the very place, thick with humid air and heat, is made of lead, and it takes every effort for her to move. Her feet, legs, thighs move achingly slowly, and she realizes she has been shot, and the blood is slowly oozing out of her thigh. She mechanically rips out a part of her pants and ties it above the wound, surprises herself that she doesn't even cry out for the pain that must be coursing through her body.

She realizes now that she is surrounded by trees, all packed in so closely only tendrils of sunlight can enter, the tops of the trees making a canopy above. She can hear birds chirping, insects buzzing, the stream gurgling, the rustle of leaves against the breeze.

Suddenly she hears it.

The sharp crack of twigs - indicating someone's approach.

Santana's sense of hearing has been sharpened and she knows the presence of someone long before they reveal themselves and she doesn't waste time wondering who it is. She drops to the ground on all fours, as quietly as she can and starts to crawl away from the sound, to the safety of concealment in the thicker part of the jungle.

But then she catches the movement in the clump of trees and grass a few meters away, a movement that becomes more urgent, more sinister, and there is a fear that grips her as she realizes that she must get up and run.

She springs up from the place she is hiding and starts to run as fast as she can.

She feels the rustling of leaves from behind be replaced with a low, sinister rumbling sound, a sound that vibrates and causes the ground to shake beneath her.

As her heart starts to pound, she starts to pump her legs faster, but she is frustrated to realize that her legs seem to be moving ever more slowly than before, and she seems to not be going anywhere at all.

The skies start to darken.

Huge, dark, menacing clouds start to form.

Thunder rumbles and lightning starts to flash against the angry dark sky.

In seconds, the forest is surrounded with thick fog and heavy rains.

She is drenched with rain. She feels it on her face, on her neck and arms and back and legs, feels the cold seep into the wound, feels the goosebumps form on her skin. Briefly she wonders where Sue and Mike are.

The running takes forever, but she never loses whatever is chasing her.

Suddenly a shot rings out, loud and clear and she wonders where it is coming from and wonders what has been shot and she looks down and she sees blood on her shirt, spreading slowly and she reaches down and holds her body and finds blood on her fingers.

She trips and stumbles on the ground, staring at the blood on her fingers, with the steady rain pounding against her face and back, falling on her, around her, so that when she looks up, she realizes she is kneeling in front of her father's grave in the middle of a cold, late afternoon downpour, drenched to the bone, wind whipping her shirt against the wind, water running down her face, her neck, her hands, as she stares at the gravestone. She reaches out, traces the name of her father engraved on the stone and she can hear it, a voice, deep, dark, accusing, telling her, "You let me die…!"

The voice comes from behind, and when she turns around, it is the face of her father, looking at her, telling her, "You did nothing to save me…"

"I'm…I'm…" she stammers, not knowing what to say.

The face suddenly changes to that of a tall woman with long, blonde hair, telling her, softly, "How could you let them kill me, San?"

"I didn't…I didn't…"

"You just…left me there, San…you just left me…"

"I'm sorry…I'm sorry…I'm sorry…"

She finds she is crying now, unmindful of the wind and rain lashing against her.

There is a deep, dark, great pain, like that of a knife that has been stabbed in her chest and twisted, that pierces through her and she howls in grief and pain and hurt, but as she opens her mouth, she finds she cannot scream at all.

She stands up, starts to run, away from her father, her girlfriend, away from everything, but she finds herself slip and falling down, down, down, on a deep, dark, endless abyss.

When she gets to the bottom of it, she finds that it is her grave, that her father and her girlfriend are throwing dirt at her and she screams and screams and screams and she finds herself falling again…

And when she lands, hard, on the ground, in the endless nothingness of nothingness…

* * *

She suddenly wakes up in a sweat, heart beating so fast, breathless. At first she doesn't know where she is, but when she realizes she is naked, and there's a naked body beside her, she realizes she has spent the night with Rachel.

Santana had woken up to dreams of her father and Brittany, their images haunting her.

Santana gets up then, all sweaty and shivering, wincing at her muscles popping, wincing at the ache in her bones, at old bones that have been broken and healed, leaving only the ghost of a pain within. She goes to pick up her clothes, more to calm herself down, than anything. She sees a snow globe lying on Rachel's dresser and instantly recognizes it. She'd been there when her father had given it to Rachel. The snow globe reminds her of her father. Suddenly she feels ashamed. She silently apologizes to her father, to Brittany. She'd been distracted. But she remembers why she has survived. Why she is near now.

She is here for one, and only one reason.

Revenge.

Retribution.

Payback.

But standing there in the middle of Rachel's apartment, she doesn't know where to start, or even how. Having been on the island three years had given her a long time to think about planning, but where to even begin? _Dia De Los Muertos_ seems like a long time ago…and though in waking she can barely recall her father or Brittany anymore, they still come to her dreams, every night, asking her to avenge them and it is the only thing that keeps her alive now, keeps her going.

As she stands there, feeling the minutes tick by, feeling the urgency press around her, she realizes that she needs to think.

She realizes that she needs to leave.

* * *

She finds Karofsky still awake and alert at three in the morning, face inscrutable as he watches Santana emerge out of Rachel's building with nary a backward glance. She enters the limo and tonelessly tells Karofsky to take her home.

Rushing through the streets of Cosmopolis City, Santana realizes something.

The city isn't as Santana has remembered it.

It feels grittier somehow, darker, more depressing, desolate.

The world seems different somehow. She doesn't know if the three years has changed her significantly or the world has always been like this - desolate, despondent, devoid of anything, and she just hasn't noticed it.

She leans over to turn on the television in her limo and the screen comes on and she can see Rod Remington, giving the morning news.

"If you're just tuning in," Rod Remington says now, "Three male teenagers were found dead in one of the basements of one of the parents early this morning, along with four female teenagers, who have all been found unconscious and are now in the hospital, recuperating. It is believed the boys had overdosed on the new party drug that they call 'D'. The bodies of Joe Larsen, Rory Flanagan and Ryder Lynn were found dead around three this morning…"

Santana stops. She knows those names. She just met those boys a few days ago. She leans over to increase the volume on the television. When pictures of the boys are flashed on screen, along with pictures of the girls, she realizes they _were_ the ones she had before. She doesn't seem to need to know what 'D' does to a person. She is relieved that none of the dead include her Tia Maribel's son, Jake.

"…Doctors were unable to resuscitate them on the way to the hospital…While the three girls, Kitty Wilde, Marley Rose, and the two other girls, Penny and Bree, are in the hospital…"

Interviews from family and friends reveal the victims to be nice, all-American kids who made a few bad decisions of trying to mix party drugs with alcohol.

Currently, he is giving the audience a rundown of the day's news, the rising crime rates, juvenile delinquency, drugs, violence, petty theft, drugs, gang wars and turf wars. While she was gone, they, whoever they were, had polluted the city, her city.

She looks out of the window, does not know what to think. Those kids hadn't deserved to die, but she is only one person, and she has only one objective. They were stupid. They weren't thinking. They weren't her problem. Avenging her father and her girlfriend is.

But then her ears perk up when Remington talks about a man named Dustin Goolsby and the ongoing drug war in Mexico and she narrows her eyes and remembers him. He is connected somehow to her father's death. She needs to know how. It could lead to actually killed her father.

Suddenly, a motorcycle appears just a few yards in front of them. Karofksy doesn't say anything, Santana doesn't notice the motorbike or the rider, but the biker guns his engine and rushes down the road, doesn't stop until it meets the limo and slams against the vehicle, the biker's body slamming against it. Karofksy hits the brakes and Santana jerks forward, the biker slides off the hood, jumps to the door, opens it, drags Santana out of the car, but Santana resists, starts to punch and kick and struggle. The biker curses behind his helmet and before she knows it, Karofsky's massive hands are grabbing the man and hitting and punching him and slamming him against the car, Karofsky asking him gruffly, "Who sent you?" over and over again.

But the man suddenly jerks back, a bullet going through his head and he slumps down on the side of the limo, dead.

Santana looks out, heartbeat beating so loudly on her chest.

"Are you okay?" Karofsky asks now.

Santana nods.

"Are you hurt?" Karofsky asks.

Santana shakes her head.

Karofksy nods before he says, "I'm calling the police," whips out his phone and starts to dial 911. As he talks on the phone, Santana's thoughts drift off.

It's been three years since she had disappeared and had been presumed dead, but there are people who still want her dead.

Three years in which the world has moved on and has gone on turning, believing that Santana Lopez had died along with her father and her girlfriend that fateful "Day of the Dead" celebrations in Mexico.

Three years in which plenty of things have happened, have changed, and plenty of things have stayed the same.

Three years.

Three years seething in grief and agony and _rage_.

Three years reliving her father's death in his own house.

Three years reliving her girlfriend's death right in front of her.

Three years reliving the nightmare in her dreams and in her waking life, feeling the phantom bullet explode through her chest over and over and over again, even as the wound has healed and has become a vague, angry scar on her chest.

Three years of planning her revenge, of vowing, on her father and Brittany's grave, that she will find whoever had her father and Brittany murdered, in cold blood.

They were going to pay.

They were _all_ going to pay.

And they will rue the day they ever let Santana Lopez _live_...

* * *

_**A/N: That's it for this chapter. Many thanks for reading and reviewing. Your kind reviews are welcome and will be much appreciated.**_

_**Many thanks to the following for their reviews on the previous chapter:**_

_**Ryoko05, CoffeeShopLoner, aviran, lesmismewicked, pictureofsuccess, yanval, CarolineSC**_

_**Glad you all like it! Thank you. All your wonderful comments were much appreciated.**_

_**Apologies for taking this long with this update. Work and real life keep getting in the way (especially since fall is here and classes start soon) so apologies in advance. **__**I'm also still trying to get a feel for this story, and one of the many reasons it took so long is because writer's block. But I'm back and I'm slowly figuring out where to go next. Many thanks for your patience. **__**Questions will be answered as the story unfolds, so please bear with me. I shall update as soon and as often as I can.**_

_**Also, this intimate scene was originally a heterosexual scene I'd once read (the author was H. Saint, I think) but I'd rewritten it as a gay/femslash scene because I totally like subverting the heteronormative aspects of pop culture. :-)**_

_**Also, many thanks to the beta, DragonsWillFly for all the help and encouragement.**_


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